


The 13th Sign

by prufrockslove



Series: The 13th Sign [1]
Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 17:07:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 71,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14815400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prufrockslove/pseuds/prufrockslove
Summary: Mulder saw no reason for life, death, sex, Armageddon, or emotional dysfunction to stand in the way of true love.





	1. 2

Title: The 13th Sign

Author: prufrock’s love

Email: prufrockslove@yahoo.com

Rating: Strong R

Classification: X-file, MSR, Post Season 7

Summary: Mulder saw no reason for life, death, sex, Armageddon, or emotional dysfunction to stand in the way of true love.

Spoilers: Through season 7

Disclaimer: Not mine; don't sue. This isn't intended for profit.

No archive permission is given except to Colonization Headquarters, AO3, and Gossamer.

 

 

Book I: Does the IRS have a form for soulmates filing separately?

 

****

 

Eight weeks ago the FBI fired Fox Mulder, and ten weeks ago Death rejected him. Again. The Bureau fired lots of people, but only Mulder could repeatedly fail at Dead.

 

If pre-apocalyptic shitty luck was an event, he'd be either dead last or in contention for the gold. The jury remained out.

 

Now, Mulder sat in the driver's seat of his new Volvo and did nothing. The sedan's interior smelled like new leather and new baby. Outside, the sunless morning sky spit snow and covered downtown Washington D.C. like an old gray blanket.

 

Doing nothing wasn't his strong suite, but he applied himself.

 

Scully would never believe it, but Mulder wanted to be normal. He wanted a normal family and a normal home with a dog in the yard, and a job where he never listed his own death as his reason for taking sick leave. Twice. He never asked for a genetic destiny or envisioned himself on a quest for some higher truth. He never signed up to save the world.

 

Mulder glanced up from the newspaper and watched the man who stared back from the driver's side mirror. His features looked older, but his lips still pink instead of blue, the blood pulsing through his temples, and the scars on his cheeks faded to barely noticeable. He wondered sometimes if he was a clone or a hybrid of some sort. Almost human, almost alive, but not. He felt like it.

 

He looked down. He clenched and opened one hand, expecting to see the gray, dead skin around the Christ-like wound through his wrist. He saw none, like last week and the week before.

 

With a sigh, he slouched into the car's ergonomic seat and tried to relax while he waited. In the baby seat in the back, William dozed and made soft baby snores Mulder found comforting. Outside the car, federal workers passed in a kaleidoscope of winter jackets and scarves, their boots rhythmic against the sidewalk. Scully's cup of decaf cooled in the cup holder beside his hot tea. The two scents mingled amicably.

 

All in all, life after death wasn't bad. He had the through-the-looking-glass sensation from missing months of his life, but he looked the part, if nothing else. He'd matched wits with the worst killers humanity offered and he'd untangled evil, shadowy plots defying the laws of nature; he could pull off normal for the sake of Scully and her son.

 

"We can do this, buddy." Mulder glanced in the rearview mirror at William.  He didn't know whom he spoke to - the baby or his own reflection.

 

Two years ago, he and Scully embarked on a series of civil and scientific in vitro attempts. Mulder waived his right to or responsibility for any child she might conceive. It was Her Baby: capital letters.  His sperm got washed before being introduced to her egg (Ms. Ovum, allow me to introduce Mr. Clean Sperm. Delighted, I'm sure; let's breed.), so as few bodily fluids were exchanged as possible. His hand shook as he'd signed the legal papers, but he signed them, knowing what Scully wanted. 

 

None of the in vitro attempts took. However, when she got pregnant during a night she'd later refer to as "wild and passionate and perhaps ill-considered," he presumed the old rules still applied. Her Baby. Look but don't touch. He'd forced a smile from the wasteland inside him and said he felt happy for her.

 

After a few false starts, he made it to Scully's apartment after she and the baby came home from the hospital. Mulder told himself he went over to check on her. And Her Baby. To see if they needed anything. Diapers. Groceries. A college fund. Him.  Mulder had to be good for something: changing high light bulbs, taking out the trash, getting the lid off the pickle jar. He needed a purpose. He needed a reason to keep breathing.

 

Accepting Scully's invitation to hold William was a spur-of-the-moment decision. One of his better ones.

 

Mulder wondered sometimes - during those extended existential sessions with the mirror - if Scully invited him into William's life because Mulder had no place else to go and both he and Scully knew it.

 

Currently, in the Hoover Building, Scully met with AD Skinner. She was making arrangements to transfer to Quantico after her maternity leave ended. She wanted to stay with the Bureau, but if Mulder wanted to go inside the FBI, he'd need a visitor's pass. Someone else answered the bat phone in the X-files office.

 

Life rearranged itself at warp speed. He became undead, unemployed, and a father all in the space of a few months. Given the bug Assistant Director Kersh had stuck up his butt, getting fired wasn't a surprise.  But the other two: Mulder's Lazarus act and the adorable bundle of impossible in the back seat... Buying a Volvo yesterday seemed a step in the right direction.

 

He saw Scully approaching on the sidewalk. Mulder put down the latest issue of “The Lone Gunman” and hit the button to unlock the doors. Instead of getting in, she walked around to his side of the car. Mulder hit the button to roll down his window. It sank into the doorframe with annoyingly efficient Swedish precision and let the icy January wind in.

 

"Everything okay?" he asked neutrally.

 

"Everything's fine," she assured him, and he knew instantly she lied. "I'm going to be longer than I anticipated. It's getting colder, and they're predicting more snow. Could you take William back to my place? You can handle him for a few hours, can't you?"

 

Mulder shrugged one shoulder. "It's easier to wait here instead of driving to Georgetown, unloading, reloading, and driving back to pick you up. I'm not doing anything else today, and William thinks the rear windshield defroster is fascinating."

 

She broke eye contact.

 

"The defroster is pretty cool," he added, trying to work up to sarcasm.

 

"No. Go on," she said. "I'll be a few hours. Give him four ounces at noon, and again after his nap. Everything is ready in the refrigerator. Don't forget to burp halfway through."

 

"Right." Mulder nodded. "Me or him?"

 

"You or William what?"

 

He shook his head. The dumb joke didn't merit an explanation.

 

"Or you can take him to my mother's," she amended.

 

"Thank you for the vote of confidence, Agent Scully, but between Oxford and Quantico, I think I'm competent to watch a baby sleep for a few hours." He paused. "Are you sure everything's all right?"

 

"Everything's fine," she repeated. "I'm meeting with Skinner and Deputy Director Kersh at noon. You and I can talk tonight."

 

"What is there to talk about? Is there a problem with transferring to Quantico? Your old position is open. You've applied, and Skinner's approved the transfer. Where does Kersh fit in?"

 

"I'm exploring all the options." She glanced back at the ugly Hoover Building. "I'll know more after the meeting."

 

"With Kersh?"

 

She nodded. The wind whipped her auburn hair around her face.

 

"All right," he said warily. 

 

His history with Scully stretched back eight years, but as partners, with him as the senior agent. He had the final say on the X-files. These days, the X-files belonged to Agent Doggett and Agent Reyes. Mulder and Scully's partnership had ended. Despite ten pounds of cooing, drooling evidence they'd combined genetics, they barely qualified as lovers. They weren't married, and Scully didn't want to be. At her apartment, Mulder had a dresser drawer and a shelf in the bathroom. They cared about each other, they worked well as a team, and they had a baby in common:  A + B = C.  They'd reached the part in old movies where the scene faded to black and the director yelled “cut!”

 

Unfortunately, in the absence of set directions, they'd kissed, looked at each other awkwardly, and thought, ‘what the hell do we do?’

 

At least, he did. Scully probably had it all mapped out. She probably had a five-year plan with tables and pie graphs. Mulder had a few ideas scribbled down on the back of an old envelope.

 

Don't let Scully down. Save the world. Live happily ever after.

 

"Are you happy, Mulder?" she asked, sounding like each word had a carefully structured paragraph behind it.

 

He echoed in surprise, "Am I happy?" He studied her pretty face as the anemic winter sun framed it. "Define happy."

 

"Define it?" she said awkwardly. "Happiness.  It's a concept, a comparison.  A lack of suffering is, by definition, happiness."

 

"Okay..."

 

"Happiness, Mulder.  It's a very tentative state."

 

"Tentative happiness." A semi-normal life: fragile, handle with care. Minor imperfections may occur. "Are you happy?" he wanted to know.

 

"I'm asking you."

 

"I'm asking you. What the hell are we talking about, Scully?"

 

"Nothing."

 

She straightened up, stepped back from the car, and pulled the front of her coat closed.  Today was the first time she'd worn a suit since the baby came, and he'd witnessed twenty minutes of changing, muttering, and safety-pinning this morning before she found one that fit.

 

"Okay," he repeated uncertainly.

 

"I'll see you later."

 

"I'll see you then," he agreed, and she nodded as she wrapped her scarf around her neck.

 

They had a plan; they'd see each other later.

 

****

 

Two hours later, the phone rang in Scully's apartment. The caller I.D. read ‘Assistant Director Skinner,' but Mulder heard Scully's voice over the line.

 

"In and out, Mulder," she kept repeating. "A few hours." No matter what Mulder argued, she repeated, "I'll be in and out. Nothing dangerous," as if she'd obtained a lobotomy and developed Tourette's between mid-morning and lunch.

 

"Let me talk to Skinner," Mulder demanded. He hoped the brain-eating amoebas hadn't yet spread to the AD.

 

"Mulder, I'll be home by tonight," Scully insisted. "This is a nothing assignment. I'll be in and out."

 

"Why you?" he asked angrily. He sat on the rug in Scully's living room with William in the baby carrier in front of him. "Why not chose someone else for this allegedly 'nothing' assignment?"

 

"Because Agent Doggett is my partner."

 

Mulder resisted saying various things chauvinist. "He was your partner," he said, stressing the 'was.' "On the X-files.  You said you were transferring to Quantico.  Teaching.  How does undercover work on the X-files come into play?  Where did this assignment come from?  What about Agent Reyes?"

 

He heard silence on the other end of the phone.

 

"Are you going back to the X-files? You have a six-week old baby! I thought you-"

 

"I have to do this, Mulder.  No, I'm not going back to the X-files. I'm going back to Quantico. This assignment is one afternoon, and there's no danger, and there's no one else."

 

"How can there be no one else? There's no one else in the entire FBI who can handle a last-minute, non-dangerous, afternoon pleasure cruise of an undercover assignment?"

 

More silence. He felt the tops of his ears burning.

 

"Something's wrong here, Scully," he insisted. "It's a set-up of some sort. You're not thinking."

 

"Mulder, if there's one thing I'm certain of, it's I have been thinking.” Her voice sounded angry. “Since the minute I learned I was pregnant, all I've done is think. About you, about my baby. I need you to take care of William for a few hours. I don't need you plucking conspiracies out of thin air."

 

"What's your cover? Where will you be?"

 

"You know I can't tell you."

 

He gaped a few times. "You can't tell me?"

 

"I have to do this," she repeated evenly. "I'll be home tonight. In and-"

 

"Goddamn it, Scully!"

 

"Mulder, it's an assignment. I don't have a choice."

 

"You do have a choice. Tell them to take their assignment and shove it-"

 

"This isn't debatable. I don't like it either, but please don't do this. I need to know William will be okay."

 

He exhaled through his nose, probably blowing two clouds of smoke like a cartoon bull. "He'll be fine," he said through his teeth.

 

"And you?" she asked. "Mulder?" Her voice softened. "If I do this, will you be all right?"

 

His anger faded as her voice slipped inside his soul, smoothing out the creases.  On the alien ship, pinned down with steel spikes for vivisection, and listening to the saws and drills whine as they closed in on his flesh, Mulder had heard her voice. Scully was there, in his hindbrain, whispering to him it would be all right.  He remembered believing her.

 

"I'll be okay," he promised tightly. "He'll be fine. We'll be fine. I lu- I'll- Uh... Take care of yourself."

 

"I will. I'll be home tonight, and we can talk. Take care of William. There's milk in my freezer.  Call my mother if you need anything."

 

"All right. I guess we'll see you tonight," he said.

 

"I'll see you tonight," she responded.

 

****

 

He thought Scully had everything under control, with every I dotted and every T crossed.  Mulder vanished, she was pregnant, he was dead, he was undead, and she had a baby.  Scully handled everything with her usual finesse, and he did mean Everything with a capital E. Sometimes Mulder thought the one thing he brought to the party was a Y chromosome.

 

After so many years, he should have known better.

 

As the afternoon faded, Mulder roamed Scully's apartment, restless. He checked the door was locked and he kept track of the cars parked on her street. He looked in on William every three minutes to make sure the baby kept breathing. Mulder went to the bathroom mirror and made sure he still breathed, and life wasn't some trick of the light. 

 

Post-traumatic Death Disorder - there wasn't a support group or a website.

 

Instead of being with the other tapes in the den, Mulder found the VHS tape marked ‘Mulder’ in a top drawer beside the fridge, along with notepads, pens, and a spare magazine for her gun. Curious, he slid it into her VCR, closed the blinds, and leaned back against the sofa, crossing his legs. 

 

The first part of the tape contained a series of clips of him, some pulled from press conferences as far back as 1989. A lecture he'd given at Quantico, and footage from conferences and security cameras. There was a sound bite of him in a tuxedo telling the woman from “Hollywood Insider” to "piss off" after the awful zombie movie premiered. He grimaced at a clip of an L.A. Deputy demanding Mulder’s identification after he claimed they were searching for a werewolf. The claim had made so much more sense in the moment, before it was on national television.

 

Mulder checked on William again, and settled back, getting comfortable.  He'd never have guessed Scully had a self-compiled best-of-Fox-Mulder movie, which, hopefully, she used for nefarious, self-fulfilling purposes.

 

The next footage opened in the interior of his apartment on May 27, 2000, 6:56 p.m., according to the time stamp on the screen. The camera panned slowly over his leather couch, his fish tank, the window with sticky residue from masking tape, and back to the bedroom door.  The frame shifted, tilted, and he heard his own voice, sounding smarmy:

 

"Scully, it's me. I called and didn't get an answer at your place or the office, and your cell phone is turned off, so I thought you might be at my place. I don't know why, but I thought you might be.  Skinner and I landed in Oregon, and so far he's been a giant pain in the ass. Sorry you're missing it. Anyway, I'm at the motel - same room as before - and about to head out to the forest, and I wanted to give you a call and see how you were doing. I wanted you to know I miss you. As my partner. Out here, in the field, covering my back. Not front, of course. Skinner never wants to crawl into bed with me.” His voice paused. “A joke, Scully. I’m joking. Anyway, I miss you and, uh, as soon as you know, could you give me a call and tell me what the doctors say? About those dizzy spells. I'm sure it's nothing. I hope it's nothing. Please call and let me know. I'll be in the woods, looking for bright lights but staying well within our departmental budget. I, uh, I miss you, baby. Strike that. I miss you, Scully. Sorry, I don't know what I was thinking. Freudian slip, I guess. I- I'll lu, uh, see you soon."

 

The computerized voice on his answering machine added, "Message received May second at seven forty-one p.m.," followed by a beep as the screen went dark again.

 

Mulder remembered making the call and hesitating at the end, wanting to say he loved her, but not quite able to. They'd started to make love a few nights before - in the same motel room in Oregon - but Scully had pulled away, saying she didn't feel up to it.  He'd acted like he'd believed her. She'd rationalized, he'd nodded, and they'd stumbled on, much more than friends and slightly less than lovers. Partners joined at the wussy.

 

August 9, 2000; 3:35 am, according to the next caption on the bottom right of the TV screen.  The camera wobbled, focused on the ceiling, and panned down to Scully. She wore green scrubs and stood in front of a steel examination table. She looked too slim, and purple shadows smudged her pale face.  A body lay behind her, draped with a white sheet.

 

"I'm not doing this, Agent Scully," Skinner's hoarse voice said from behind the lens.

 

"Do it, or give me the camera and get out," she responded. She put her hands on her hips and dropped her head tiredly. 

 

No further objections came from the cameraman, and the footage steadied.

 

"I'm sure this seems morbid," she began, still looking down. "But you've probably grown up with morbid, and Mulder would find this strangely amusing." She looked up at the camera, tried to smile, and failed. "I wish I knew more about you, even what the world will be like by the time you watch this, but-"

 

The camera swung to John Doggett coming through the swinging doors. Scully and Skinner snapped in unison, "Get the fuck out!"

 

Agent Doggett retreated quickly, looking crushed.

 

Mulder chuckled, the sound of his laughter seeming foreign and dry in his chest.  There it was, preserved for posterity: Dr. Dana Katherine Scully saying the F-word.

 

"I wish I knew if you are a boy or a girl, if you have hazel eyes or blue.  If you like basketball or bad science fiction movies or- I don't know.  There are so many little details I'm afraid will get lost over the years. I want you to know as much about him as you can. Whoever you are, whoever you'll be, you missed meeting an amazing man. We all did, by about five minutes."

 

"Scully, I can't," Skinner said shakily. The camera tilted and the picture went black again.

 

Mulder exhaled slowly as he realized for whom she'd been making the video. And who the body on the table was.  Had been.

 

"Let's try this again," Scully said in a rough voice, as the video camera panned over the tile floor of some morgue. "Ex-marines aren't as tough as they think they are."

 

She focused the camera on a man's hand and wrist, grayish-green, with a stigmata-like wound through it. Mulder flexed his fingers as she narrated, "They aren't warm, but they usually are.  Mulder's hands are warm. And soft. I thought he could have been a concert pianist for years before I knew he could play. He can. Could. One night, he sat down at the baby grand in the bar at the Memphis Ramada Inn and played fifties rockabilly for half an hour. He felt inspired. Memphis. Graceland. He likes Elvis. He noticed I was listening and switched to classical, which I guess he thought I'd like better. Truthfully, ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ was fine.’"

 

The lens moved quickly up his arm, and he saw mottling where the blood had pooled.  The body had been dead so long embalming would have been impossible.  He caught a glimpse of the incision down the center of his chest as the camera panned over his shoulder and slowly up his face, mercifully pulling back. Rows of wounds marked his cheeks, and his blue lips parted. She panned away, as if wanting to capture details rather than a dead body.  Her fingertip caressed his lips, and trailed down, wiping away the paths from long-dried tears.

 

Mulder tried to imagine what she'd been thinking. Did she remember him kissing her, whispering to her as they made love like the one night would last forever? Or them dancing outside a Pizza Hut bathroom, turning like two restless souls orbiting each other, and him admitting his relief in-vitro hadn't worked? Or Mulder saying she would never have baby seats and white picket fences with him, and letting her walk away as a big 'loser' sign glowed above his head? Or kissing beside the Tidal Basin on a beautiful spring evening, believing they had all the time in the world to work things out? She'd been a few weeks pregnant and hadn't known; he'd been a few weeks from the last, ill-fated trip to Oregon.

 

"Nice ears," her voice continued. "His mother must have taught him to keep them squeaky clean. Sensitive earlobes, which I'm not certain you need to know, but which might be hereditary, like he can curl his tongue and make the 'Live long and prosper' sign from Star Trek. If you look closely, there's a scar from having both his ears pierced.  He did it at Oxford, trying to impress a girl. Phoebe. He got the left one pierced, heard it meant he was gay, so he had the right one pierced, and heard it was the gay ear. He ended up taking both earrings out and dying his hair purple. I'm not sure if Phoebe was impressed or not. Probably not."

 

The camera jiggled as she sniffed.

 

"It's the little things I'm afraid I'll forget to tell you about him. I can show you pictures, and I can tell you stories about Mulder, but I want him to be real to you. Trust me, this is as real as it gets."

 

Except for being corpse-colored, his forehead was unblemished. She focused on it, running her fingers through his limp, dirty hair.

 

"He doesn't know; he has no idea. He'd helped me as I'd tried to have a baby before, and he blamed himself after it failed, of course. He never said anything, but I know he did."

 

She was right; he had. She wanted something and, whether he wanted it or not, he couldn't give it to her. Again and again - each month a clump of cells failing at life. Each month brought another little death for her to mourn as he stood by helplessly.

 

"This is different," her voice said. "You are different.  I got my miracle, Mulder."

 

She exhaled shakily and sniffed again. The footage changed. The video filmed Scully's hand in his, with the time stamp twenty minutes later.

 

"I think I'm numb. It's not real. I keep thinking ridiculous things like 'I can't bury him with his hair dirty and shaggy. It needs cut and washed, but where am I going to find an open salon at five in the morning in Helena, Montana?' I keep expecting him to sit up and say something sarcastic like ‘if you'd wanted me out of my pants, you could have asked, baby.’" Her voice softened, talking to herself rather than for the camera. "I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry, Mulder. We're going to have a baby, Mulder."

 

Off-camera, a man cleared his throat. "Agent Scully," Skinner said gently. "Dana. Transport's ready."

 

"All right," she answered, still stroking her fingers over his. "We're ready. Let's go home, Mulder."

 

The screen faded again, and the VHS tape showed a montage of images and sounds. Photos of Samantha. Of him. Their basement office. The old message from their FBI voicemail before it changed upon John Doggett's arrival. Mulder hadn't forgiven Doggett: move in on a guy's girl and change his voice mail message. 

 

The video indicated Scully had made a trip up the coast. She'd filmed his mother's house in Greenwich and his father's in West Tisbury, narrating the little she knew about each.  The new owners had repainted his father's house, and his mother's home still had a ‘for sale’ sign in the front yard.  Scully even videoed the old summer cottage in Quonochontaug, which he sold long ago.

 

Mulder saw an early ultrasound, which he rewound and watched twice, fascinated. Another ultrasound followed, and another as the baby grew and Mulder saw fingers and facial features.  Next came quick clips of Scully at various stages of her pregnancy. She'd set the camera on the kitchen counter, propped at the right angle, switch it on, walk in front of it, turn to show off her belly, walk back, and turn it off again.

 

The clips stopped six weeks before the baby was born, so about the time Mulder returned to the land of the living. The television screen crackled with gray static and went blue as the tape ended. Mulder stared at it until William woke and requested attention. 

 

****

 

A watched pot might never boil, and he'd concede Elvis might not have faked his own death, but a stared-at phone did finally ring.

 

The call came at eight o’clock. "We have a slight problem," Skinner's voice said. 

 

Scully said she'd be home tonight. Channeling his Jewish mother, Mulder defined night as dusk.

 

"Clarify ‘a slight problem,’" Mulder responded tersely. William snuggled against him, naked, a successfully bathed bundle of blanket and powdery soft skin.

 

"Agent Scully's not going to be able to leave her assignment tonight. She's safe," Skinner added quickly. "She can't leave without blowing her cover, and by doing so, the investigation."

 

To hell with the damn investigation. Mulder didn't care if it blew everything and everyone up to Bill Clinton; he wanted Scully walking through her front door in twenty minutes.

 

"How soon will she be able to leave? Late tonight?  Tomorrow morning?"

 

"Soon," Skinner hedged. "As soon as it's feasible.  Mulder, I am sorry."

 

"You're sorry?"

 

"Yes, I am.  Is there anything I can do?"

 

"Can you breastfeed?" Mulder asked angrily. He'd nearly depleted the stockpile of frozen Mommy Juice.

 

"Shit." Skinner exhaled unhappily. "Mulder-"

 

"I swear to God, if you have her posing as a hooker on a corner, I'll rip you limb from limb."

 

"No, nothing of the sort. We have surveillance on her around the clock. She's not in any danger. I promise, we'll get her out of there as soon as possible."

 

"But you won't tell me where she is or what she's doing."

 

"You know how the FBI works, Mulder. We all knew the rules of the game when we signed on. Again, I'm sorry."

 

"Uh-huh." They had this conversation before, after Scully's abduction, as she lay in a hospital bed with a machine breathing for her. "I'll keep you posted."

 

"Uh-huh."

 

Mulder hung up and pushed a speed dial button on Scully's phone.

 

"The Lone Studman," Frohike's voice crooned halfway through the first ring. "Good evening, Agent Scully."

 

"It's Mulder."

 

A disappointed "Oh."

 

"How's family life?" Langly chimed in. "Long time, no hack, Jack."

 

"Well, how about starting now." Mulder shifted William to one shoulder and cradled portable phone against the other. "Why don't we start with finding Scully?"

 

"Did you lose her?" Langly asked. "She's short. Can't see her over the racks at Wal-Mart."

 

"Let's say I'm not planning on losing her."

 

****

 

Technically, Mulder trespassed on someone's private property, and - if the Bureau felt wrathful - he obstructed a federal investigation. Both convictions carried jail time but being locked up was a minor dissuasion at this point in his life. It did occur to Mulder the pokey probably lacked quality on-site childcare, though. He viewed the thought as progress in the responsible, parental-thinking department.

 

Scully's wrath, if she ever found out who Mulder had allowed to watch Her Baby, might make him wish for the safety of an eight-by-eight cell.

 

A sound reverberated through his earpiece again, so clear he almost tasted the 7-Eleven hot dog and Big Gulp behind it. The Gunmen ran on fast food, caffeine, and paranoia. If Scully was around, Frohike switched to diet soda and mentioned how often he worked out.

 

In the crook of the tree, Mulder twisted so he could see behind him. He trained his binoculars through the tree branches and focused on a faded 1973 Plymouth Valiant parked beside a picnic shelter at the top of the hill. Frohike's self-described "chick-mobile" might be the least memorable vehicle ever built. Unless an eager-beaver member of law enforcement stopped to see if the vehicle was abandoned, detection seemed unlikely. Mulder's or Scully's car was too recognizable, so the untraceable Plymouth served as HQ, housing Frohike, Langly, and the honorary "littlest gunman."

 

From what Mulder saw through the windshield, William had finished his morning bottle. In addition to Byers' traditional approach, Frohike tried to get the baby to burp by showing him how it was done.  Repeatedly.  Langly leaned over the back seat and helped, while William stared at them, wide-eyed, as if trying to decide if he should be afraid.

 

"Pat. His. Back," Mulder ordered into his microphone, and the frat boy chorus came to an end.

 

"Good one, little dude," Langly's voice said a moment later, and Frohike's hat nodded in approval. Mulder saw Frohike take another long drink from his convenience store vat of diet soda.

 

Mulder shifted, trained his binoculars on the compound again, and tried not to think about William's budding phobia of troll dolls. The alternative was leaving the baby with Maggie Scully while Mulder and his geek friends went to commit a felony, which in no way made him sound like a responsible adult.

 

The compound looked rundown. A collection of small houses, weeds, and an empty vegetable garden huddled in the valley between two hills.  Inside the chain-link fence, an old church served as the main gathering place. Its paint peeled off to show the gray boards underneath.  Skinny chickens pecked at the frozen yard. A woman in a turtleneck sweater opened a door and tossed a pan of scraps to them.

 

Mulder focused next on a shivering pair of FBI agents concealed on the hillside a few hundred yards from Mulder’s perched.  They must be the "visual surveillance" Skinner mentioned, and they didn't inspire Mulder's confidence. If they hadn't spotted him in an hour, they sure as hell weren't competent to surveil his-

 

More-than-friend?  Ex-partner?  Woman with whom he had a child and an unspoken agreement but no formal commitment?  Companion, keeper, and savior?  The IRS didn't have a form for soulmates filing separately.

 

He steadied and refocused the binoculars as Scully emerged from one of the houses, shrugging on a coat.  Once on the porch, she exhaled, rolled her shoulders, picked up an empty bucket, and headed toward a pump in the yard. Either the commune didn't have indoor plumbing or the water was turned off. Within seconds, Doggett followed. He took the bucket and chivalrously manned the pump while Scully watched.

 

She had her hair pulled into a loose ponytail. She wore glasses, but no makeup or jewelry except a narrow wedding band. The winter coat wasn't the one she'd worn the previous day, and the long skirt and boots visible below it looked like clearance items from the softer side of Sears. Like the Church Lady meets Woodstock.

 

According to a file mysteriously relocated from the FBI database to The Gunmen's computer, her cover was Doggett's wife, and Agent Doggett's cover was as a member of a small UFO cult in rural Virginia. And, unfortunately for Mulder, who'd been all geared up for a rescue, she looked safe. Tired. Cold and mussed, but safe. His plan - to don Birkenstocks and body armor, crawl under the fence, and carry Scully out of the valley over his shoulder - was at a temporary standstill.

 

Before she followed Doggett inside, Scully looked up. She scanned the trees on the hillside, and he prayed she'd see him and give some sign.  Instead, she picked up an armload of wood from the woodpile and disappeared into the house.

 

"Can you see anything?" Frohike's voice whispered from Mulder's earpiece, startling him.

 

"I saw Scully. And Agent Doggett," he answered softly. His words make a cloud of white vapor in front of his mouth. "They came out of one of the houses, but they're back inside. Is William okay?"

 

"Fine. What’s the FBI investigating?" Frohike asked. "Weapons? Drugs?"

 

"The paperwork went through the X-files, so there's something paranormal here somewhere." Mulder refocused the binoculars, watching a window in case he could catch a glimpse of Scully inside. "I'd love to know what it is."

 

His earpiece crackled with static for a few seconds. Frohike asked, "You want the X-files back?"

 

"I want Scully back," he responded automatically.

 

He chaffed at Scully staying with the Bureau. She could say "light duty" and "faculty position" all she liked, but the first time a bizarre corpse showed up in Boise, Kersh would order her out of Quantico, onto a plane, and away from William in a heartbeat. The FBI wasn't a job; it demanded a lifestyle. As many ex-wives - including Mulder's - could attest, the lifestyle didn't consider an agent's family.

 

Whatever happened between them, they had William. Scully needed Mulder to be stable, available.  No more monsters, no ghosts, no alien viruses.  He'd promised he'd be there for her and do anything he could to help with the baby. If it meant teaching Intro to Psychology as a night class at the local community college, he'd do it. No more rash, reckless Agent Mulder. Let someone else battle the coming Armageddon.

 

"Yeah, I want the X-files back," he confessed to the microphone.

 

****

 

A guard waved Mulder into the parking garage under the Hoover Building. Another guard escorted him into the elevator and up to the fifth floor, offering to help with the baby. Mulder shook his head and kept walking down the corridor, to the big office at the end of the hall. He passed Agent Reyes, who hurried after him, saying something he didn't have time to listen to.  Agent Reyes took too long to say things, sometimes.

 

Skinner looked up from his desk and said brusquely, "We have a problem," which was a step removed from the "small problem," they'd had a day ago.

 

"Is Scully okay?" Mulder demanded.

 

"Yes. We think so." Skinner hesitated. "I spoke with the Special Agent in Charge, and there's been an unforeseen complication with the investigation."

 

"Unforeseen by whom?" Mulder snapped. He set the baby carrier down on the desk. William looked around the AD's office with an expression of happy puzzlement. The baby had laughed and cooed during their breakneck trip from Scully's apartment, as if it was his personal thrill ride. Turned out, if the AD of the FBI called in the middle of the night, Volvos could reach warp speed.

 

"Agents Scully and Doggett have been detained at their present location," Skinner informed Mulder. "We're maintaining visual surveillance, but we've lost covert audio.  Agent Scully will have to continue her assignment with Agent Doggett in order to prevent jeopardizing the investigation and compromising their situation."

 

Mulder nodded, a single curt jerk of his chin, as he processed from jargon to English. "What is their situation? Exactly?"

 

"They're safe, as far as we know.  There's no reason to believe they're not safe, but they're not able to leave at this time."

 

"Because..." Mulder prompted.

 

"At this time, no one is being allowed in or out of their location."  

 

"You mean she's locked in. Someone in the cult found the FBI's listening device and realized they were under surveillance.  You mean the compound locked down, barricaded themselves in, and you can't get her out."

 

Skinner exhaled and nodded.  He didn't ask how Mulder knew Scully's assignment.

 

Mulder insisted, "Get her out of there!"

 

"We have to consider-"

 

"What's to consider?  I have one word for you: Waco!  No, wait, I have more. Jonestown. Heaven's Gate. Ruby Ridge. Temple of the Seven Stars. If the phrases ‘religious cult’ and ‘barricaded themselves in’ share a sentence, bad things happen. Why is she even there? What the hell is wrong with you?"

 

"I didn't give this assignment to her.  Kersh did," Skinner said through his teeth.

 

"Is he here? Because I have a few words for him, too!"

 

Skinner held up his hands in the classic calm down gesture. "I don't like it either, but there's no evidence this group is violent or self-destructive.  As far as the FBI could tell, it's a New Age commune.  There are small children.  Let's wait and see what happens instead of going in with our guns blazing."

 

"Why did you even ask me to come in?" Mulder shook his head angrily. "You could have told me all of this over the phone.  It's not like I can change anything."

 

He planned on calling The Gunmen the second he got out of the Hoover Building. He'd tell them to prep the Birkenstocks and Batmobile.  They were going in.

 

Skinner leaned back. He glanced at the baby carrier and picked his words carefully. "I have two agents inside the compound, one of whom just had a baby. If the best course is to watch and wait, we'll keep surveillance on them and wait. But if it's not... In the end, I'm responsible for the safety of my agents, not Kersh. I don't like flying blind. I have a bad feeling about this."

 

Mulder crossed his arms. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and began to pace restlessly. "I'm still waiting for you to say something comforting."

 

"I'm saying I need an informed opinion about what's happening inside the compound.  If I need to go outside the Bureau to get it, I have the wherewithal to do so."

 

"Outside the Bureau?"

 

"At one time, we had a profiler with expertise in the paranormal.  Now, for the expertise, I have to go outside the Bureau. As I see it, the FBI has left me no choice."

 

Mulder stopped pacing and looked back over his shoulder. "Oh, you're itching to piss Kersh off, aren't you?"

 

"I prefer to think of it as making an executive decision," Skinner responded tightly.

 

****

 

"The Church of the 13th Sign is led by a man named Michael Lee Milton.  He calls himself Ophiuchus," Agent Reyes explained. She opened the file and spread its contents over the conference table.

 

"Ophiuchus.  Oh-fee-U-kus," Mulder said, correcting her pronunciation, "is the 13th Sign. The Sun passes through thirteen zodiac signs, though modern astrologers recognize twelve. The Earth has wobbled since 5th century Babylon, so the elliptic touches Virgo twice - though we count it once - and never touches Aries at all. From November 30th to December 17th, the Sun is in the house of Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer."

 

"Oh," she responded.

 

"Cults worshipping Ophiuchus date back to ancient Greece, and it's still a common religious fixation, especially in the South." Mulder paged through the file as he rocked the baby carrier with his other hand. At one in the morning, William dozed contentedly. " Ophiuchus holds a healing serpent and battles Scorpio, the Devil in the form of a scorpion. It's the one zodiac sign named after a mortal: Aescelpius, a doctor who had the power to heal all of mankind, including the dead. The Gods couldn't allow Aescelpius to make men immortal, so Zeus struck him down with a thunderbolt and placed him in the heavens as the 13th sign - Ophiuchus the Healer, the Serpent Bearer. It's the snake coiled around his staff we use as the caduceus, the symbol of modern medicine."

 

Another wide-eyed "Oh" from Agent Reyes. 

 

She should see him with slides.

 

"What about the cult are you and Agent Doggett investigating?"

 

"It's affiliated with the one in Montana which retrieved and attempted to heal UFO abductees. Your kidnapping is still an open X-file, Agent- Mr. Mulder," she corrected. "In conjunction with an FBI task force, Agent Doggett and I are investigating the connection."

 

"To my abduction?"

 

Reyes nodded. "But, as far as we could tell, unlike the Montana group, The Church of the 13th Sign never successfully recovered an abductee."

 

"Kersh gave them one," Mulder answered, thinking aloud. "An abductee. Scully's an abductee. And a doctor. Why did Doggett need her undercover?"

 

Reyes looked away, so Skinner answered. "Ophiuchus has pressed Agent Doggett to bring his wife into the cult. The plan was for Agent Scully to show up, refuse to join, have a quarrel with Agent Doggett, and leave.  In and out, like she was told.  By Kersh," Skinner added.

 

"Is Agent Scully born under the sign of Ophiuchus?" Reyes asked.

 

"No," Mulder answered. His profiler wheels begin to turn, creaking from disuse. "But her baby was."

 

He looked down, sorting through the pages scattered across the tabletop.  He stopped at a photograph of Ophiuchus, comparing it to the information Doggett and Reyes gathered.

 

The man calling himself Ophiuchus the Healer flunked out of pre-med and was dishonorably discharged from the military. He'd done time for statutory rape, fraud, possession of cocaine, and assault with intent - an all-around unlikable guy with outstanding warrants in three states.  After his mother's death, Ophiuchus was committed to a mental hospital with paranoid schizophrenia, reporting he was a multiple alien abductee. Upon release a year later, he falsified his transcripts and applied to medical school and the seminary. Both rejected him. In 1999, he emerged as the leader of a doomsday UFO cult, which, by 2001 evolved into The Church of the 13th Sign.

 

Bad things; all very bad things. The more Mulder read, the tighter the knot in his stomach got. The profile had more red flags than a bullfight.

 

"Agent Doggett believes Ophiuchus could be the real deal," Reyes said earnestly. "Like Jeremiah Smith."

 

"Well, Agent Doggett is wrong.  Did he even look at this guy's history?"

 

"Of course. Yes. We ran background checks on all the members, but in Ophiuchus' case, there wasn't much to go on."

 

Mulder gathered up the pages angrily, holding them for Reyes to see. "Not much to go on?  Pick a page.  Ophiuchus makes David Koresh look stable."

 

"He what?" Skinner asked, looking back and forth between them. "Agent Reyes?"

 

"I don't understand."

 

She took the background check, chewing her lower lip as she skimmed it.  She shifted, tilted her head, and read again. She flipped through the pages, and leafed through the ones scattered across the conference table, searching for something.

 

Mulder drummed his fingers on the tabletop and resumed rocking William's carrier harder than it needed rocked. 

 

Skinner walked a tightrope between his desk and the door to the hallway, hands on his hips, doing his unhappy dance. "Agent Reyes?" he repeated tersely.

 

She continued staring at the pages, stunned. "I don't understand.  We did a background check.  I-I did the background check, but it isn't in here.  This one- I've never seen this one before.  This isn't the information we gathered for the task force.  Michael Lee Milton is a drifter with no criminal record. No-"

 

"He has three outstanding warrants.  How did you miss outstanding warrants?" Mulder demanded.

 

"They weren't there," she insisted. "I ran him through the NCIC database, and he'd never been arrested. He'd never had a traffic ticket. This isn't the record Agent Doggett and I received."

 

Mulder drummed his fingers faster.

 

"Oh my God.  I don't know how it even got in the file," she added, sitting down numbly.

 

"I do. Someone fed you false information, making Ophiuchus seem harmless. Once Scully and Agent Doggett were undercover, they replaced your background check with this one," Mulder summarized. "Check NCIC again. A hundred bucks says you'll find exactly what this report says, and the information you received will have vanished."

 

Agent Reyes stared at him like such a thing could never happen. No one would hack the National Crime Information Center's database to change one man's information. Then change it back. 

 

Novice.

 

"It's a setup," he clarified angrily. "You and Agent Doggett got set up.  And Scully's-" He stopped drumming and stared at the baby carrier helplessly.

 

"Are they in danger?" Skinner asked. "Mulder?  Are they in danger?"

 

"Goddamn it!" He swept his arm across the table, clearing the papers and photos. A coffee cup crashed against the wood-paneled wall, soaking the carpet and waking William.

 

Mulder was off the X-files and out of the Bureau.  Scully planned to transfer to Quantico.  She had a baby.  He had a fucking Volvo with a built-in baby seat.  This wasn't the life she wanted and this wasn't supposed to happen anymore.

 

"Mulder?" Skinner repeated as the baby howled.

 

"Get her out of there! Tonight," Mulder ordered, and Skinner picked up the phone.

 

****

 

The baby carrier sat on the back table between Skinner and Reyes, and they guarded it like two warrior archangels - Gabriel and Uriel in London Fog and Banana Republic.  The rest of the agents in the room belonged to the FBI's elite Hostage Rescue Team; more than twenty men sat silently, clothed head to toe in black. They were watchful, efficient men, veterans of Ruby Ridge and Waco and a thousand other operations. They rushed in where angels feared to tread and thought in terms of 'acceptable losses' and 'calculated risk' and other concepts foreign to most civilized men.

 

Mulder had worked with many of the senior members of the HRT before - as a green agent and a shot not taken at John Barnett ended another agent's life. With Duane Barry, before Barry escaped and took Scully to Skyland Mountain. At the Temple of the Seven Stars, where Melissa Ephesian took her own life. There was the "hiding in the light" monster and Cradock Marine Bank, and hopefully, a few cases not ending in bullets and body bags.

 

The room quieted as the lights dimmed, and the projector screen lowered from the ceiling. Mulder took a breath. He laid the photo of Ophiuchus on the overhead projector so it appeared on the bright screen.

 

"Michael Lee Milton, age thirty-seven," Mulder said. "Ex-med student, ex-military, ex-con, ex-mental patient, is the leader of a small UFO cult called The Church of the 13th Sign. The name Ophiuchus comes from a zodiac myth about a demigod or fallen angel with the power to bring back the dead. Milton thinks he is Ophiuchus. Returned from the Heavens by UFO's, reincarnated, whatever.  His followers attempt to recover dead or injured UFO abductees so he can heal them. Except he can't."

 

Two-dozen heads nodded.

 

"But he believes he can," Mulder continued, "as do the members of his church. He demands and gets blind obedience. If he says shoot, they will. If he says swallow poison or kill the hostages, they will."

 

Mulder glanced over his shoulder. From the screen, Ophiuchus stared at him with bland features and dead gray eyes.  The face reminded him of Robert Modell, another little man who wanted to be big. 

 

"Earlier tonight, he found and disabled audio surveillance," Mulder said, turning toward his audience again. "Which means he knows someone's been listening.  Infrared scans indicate the members are in the central building, an old church.  Ophiuchus is probably holding them there, trying to decide which one is the spy, and becoming increasingly agitated and violent.  While we have no report of the cult stockpiling weapons, assume they're there and some of the members know how to use them."

 

Mulder replaced Ophiuchus' image with a photo of Agent Doggett, and one of Scully. "There are forty-eight cult members, including eighteen children and two undercover FBI agents, posing as a married couple.  They're both seasoned agents who've done undercover work and been in hostage situations before."

 

Scully had been in more hostage situations than Mulder cared to count. 

 

He counted anyway. Twelve.  Since joining the X-files, she'd been abducted or held against her will twelve times. Unless the cult members were having a pajama party in the church, this made lucky thirteen. 

 

"It's possible Ophiuchus knew in advance who Agents Scully and Doggett are," Mulder continued. "He may have a personal interest in one or both of them, purposely lured them into his church, and kept them there.  Agents Doggett and Reyes received false NCIC information about Ophiuchus, which suggests greater forces are at work.  Possibly forces inside the FBI."

 

"For what purpose?" an agent asked from the back of the room, sounding skeptical.

 

Mulder looked toward the voice, trying to make out the man's features in the dim room. The voice sounded familiar, but Mulder couldn't recall a name or which operation they'd worked together.

 

"We don't know," Mulder answered, moving on. "To put Agent Doggett in danger, possibly.  Or to make him and Agent Reyes look foolish and discredit the X-files office. Until recently, Agent Scully also worked on the X-files."

 

"How do we make contact to begin negotiations?" someone else asked.

 

"We don't," Mulder responded. "Ophiuchus thinks he's half-human and half-god. Paranoid demigods see no benefit in negotiating with the FBI.  He believes he has the power to raise the dead, which means he won't hesitate to cause death. If he knows we're coming, we'll have another Jonestown or Seven Stars."

 

"You're certain?" Skinner asked.

 

Mulder nodded. The agents shifted uncomfortably. Even negotiations ending badly saved lives. The longer they kept a kidnapper talking, the higher the chance of the hostages surviving.  Keep a kidnapper talking for twenty-four hours and hostage deaths dropped by thirty percent.  Forty-eight hours, sixty percent.  Once the Hostage Rescue Team went in, guns drawn, survival rates plummeted.

 

"We have to surprise him.  If we don't, while we're negotiating, the people inside the compound will be dying. Ophiuchus will talk as long as it takes for his followers to kill Agents Scully and Doggett and commit suicide. All we'll find inside the compound will be bodies."

 

"Thank you, Mulder," Skinner said, and Mulder returned to the back of the room.

 

From the screen, Scully's serene blue eyes stared at him, larger than life and deeper than the ocean. Although he had no reason to - and Scully had warned not to bother a sleeping infant - Mulder picked up William and held the warm baby against him. Scully's image slid away and a map of the compound went up as the SAC of the Hostage Rescue Team assumed center stage.

 

****

 

In the Virginia countryside, a moonless night was truly black. With their headlights off, the dark vans drove single-file up the gravel road, winding through the trees to the top of the hill. The vans stopped. The rear doors swung open silently. FBI agents in body armor and night vision gear slipped into the woods like shadows.

 

"Stay with the Blazer," Skinner said. He parked on the side of the road, past the surveillance vans. "In fact, stay in the Blazer." He left the engine running. "Don't get out."

 

"We must be half a mile from the compound," Mulder said. "What do you think Ophiuchus has?  Cannons?  Scud missiles? I think I'm safe."

 

"It's not you I'm worried about." Skinner nodded curtly at the baby seat in the back. "He shouldn't be here. I'm sure the Bureau has a policy about it. If not, we need one."

 

"He's fine. He's asleep. I'm not calling Scully's mother to come get him in the middle of the night."

 

"I'm not taking any chances," Skinner said. "Stay in the Blazer."

 

"How will I know what's happening?" Mulder protested.

 

"I'll have someone bring you a headset," the Assistant Director promised over his shoulder. He closed the door and vanished into the winter night.

 

Mulder watched through the passenger side window, listening to Skinner's heavy footsteps fade away.  The SUV's engine purred, and William breathed softly, his fingers curled into miniature fists as he slept in the baby seat.  As the minutes slid past, sleet collected on the windshield, forming a fine white line across the wiper blades.

 

Restless, Mulder turned the heater up and rolled his window down.  He got out, leaned against the fender, crossed his arms, and stared impotently at the cold, black nothing around him. In the darkness, the Hostage Rescue Team moved down the slope and into place along the chain-link around the compound, establishing a perimeter.

 

William was fed, burped, changed, warm, sound asleep, and buckled safely into a government-approved car seat. He wasn't likely to wake until after five.  Mulder could save Mommy from the psychotic UFO zealot and be back by 5:15.

 

Mulder took a step away from the SUV, but also a step back. He promised Scully he would take care of Her Baby. Not take William to spend the night with Grandma in Baltimore.  Not pawn him off on The Gunmen. Not leave him alone in the SUV while Mulder played the hero.

 

Footsteps approached, and he turned as Agent Reyes emerged from the darkness. "I was told to bring you a set of ears," she said, holding an earpiece and receiver out to him, "and to make sure both of us stay out of the way."

 

As Mulder slid the earpiece into place, he heard the Hostage Rescue Team reporting in, saying they were through the fence around the compound and ready to go. Skinner ordered them to hold their positions and wait for his command.

 

"It shouldn't be much longer," Reyes assured Mulder.

 

"Do they have a visual on Scully?"

 

"Not yet."

 

"They need to have a clear visual on her before they go in.  If Ophiuchus has a special interest in her, he'll have her close to him.  She could be in the line of fire."

 

"The team knows."

 

"Could you stay with William while I-"

 

"They know. Stay put, Mulder," she ordered.

 

He slouched against the SUV and crossed his arms. 

 

After a few uncomfortable minutes, Reyes exhaled and produced a pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket. Cellophane rattled. A lighter flickered orange light against her profile, and she leaned back, seeming to savor the sweet-smelling tobacco. "I quit. Again. I don't really smoke anymore," she explained awkwardly. "Do you mind?"

 

"No. I don't really smoke anymore, either," he said. "It's a disgusting, unhealthy habit.  Can I have one?"

 

She smiled like a sad Mona Lisa and held the pack and lighter out to him.  He took them, finding temporary comfort in the once familiar ritual: the smooth paper between his fingers, the dry burn in his throat. Scully wouldn't like it, but to Hell with it.  He'd been shot, abducted, tortured, infected with an alien virus - twice - died on several occasions, and survived sundry flesh wounds, man-eating flora and fauna, and mutants galore. The Surgeon General's warning didn't carry the weight it once did.

 

"Where is Ophiuchus?" Reyes asked, filling the tense lull. "The constellation?"

 

The clouds cleared, and Mulder looked up at the endless sky, getting his bearings. Usually, his star-finding skills stopped at the Big Dipper, but tonight he got lucky.

 

"There," he said, pointing. "The star at the top of the triangle is his head, and the bottom two stars are his shoulders. See the coffin? It’s Ophiuchus, rising.  In the myth, his father was Apollo, and his mother a mortal woman named Coronis. Apollo loved her at first sight - her beauty and her intelligence. They had a passionate affair, but Coronis feared her fate with him and instead chose a mortal man who could give her a normal life, which Apollo could not. The lovers quarreled, and in a fit of rage, unaware she carried his child, Apollo struck Coronis down. He realized what he'd done, and he tried to bring her back, but he couldn't. Desperate and half-crazed with grief, he took his son and carried the baby away to a place he would be safe. Their child became Ophiuchus the Healer."

 

Agent Reyes lowered her cigarette, looking at him strangely. "Very impressive."

 

"It's Scully," he responded, shrugging one shoulder. "Her father taught her the constellations and myths and, over the years, she taught me."

 

"John's been trying to teach me to appreciate stock car racing."

 

"It's not the same."

 

"No," she admitted.

 

He adjusted the earpiece, hoping to hear something. Nothing but dead air. He checked his watch, pushing the little button so the dial glowed blue. Not much longer until dawn.

 

"John says there's an entire subtext to stock car racing I'm not appreciating.” She added, “I tell him the same thing about ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer.’"

 

Mulder stared at her, waiting for the punch line. He never knew if Agent Reyes was serious or not or making fun of him or coming on to him or trying to make conversation. Some people marched to a different drummer; Reyes polkaed.

 

"He doesn't believe me," she said.

 

"Agent Doggett's a tough sell."

 

"Yeah," she said, more to herself than him.

 

She held rather than smoked her cigarette, watching the darkness. Except for a few flecks of sleet, the blackness was crystal clear and infinitely deep.

 

"Choppers," Mulder said, hearing them. He turned as two helicopters rose from behind the horizon, lights off, blades slicing through the air. "Here we go."

 

Agent Reyes blew out a lungful of smoke. She tossed the butt down and stubbed it out with the toe of her shoe.  She watched the dark valley below them. Waves of nervous energy radiated from her.

 

Mulder heard Skinner gave the go order over the radio, and took a step forward before he caught himself.

 

As he watched, the helicopters' spotlights came on, illuminating the compound like flashlights in the distance.  A gun fired. Mulder flinched as the shot cracked in his ear, seeming inches rather than half a mile away.  Over the radio, he heard frightened shrieks, the choppers' blades whirling, and two-dozen FBI Agents ordering everyone to get down, get down.  Skinner's voice requested an update, demanding to know where the shot came from.

 

Mulder heard a cacophony of answers, but the consensus was Ophiuchus fired. 

 

William woke, adding his cries to the chaos of sounds from the compound.  On autopilot, Mulder jerked the earpiece out and opened the back door of the Blazer. "Shush... I'm here," he assured William, as he unfastened the complicated tangle of safety straps and buckles. "I'm right here, buddy.  It's okay."

 

The baby continued shrieking as Mulder picked him up and wrapped a blanket around him.  Two shots echoed through the air; in answer, an automatic rifle opened fire, sounding like firecrackers.  Mulder cupped his hand over the baby's head and watched the helicopters' spotlights scour the valley.

 

Agent Reyes pressed her earpiece tighter into her ear.  There was a muffled shot, probably from a Hostage Rescue Team sniper in one of the trees, and silence.

 

No shots, no screams, no choppers, no nothing.

 

"What's happening?" Mulder demanded as William continued to sob.

 

"They're- Hold on," Reyes said. "I don't know.  I can't hear." She fiddled with her earpiece and checked the connection to the box on her waist. "It's not working. All I hear is static."

 

A light rose above the trees on the horizon like a star becoming a supernova. It grew brighter. For half a second, Mulder stupidly thought a third helicopter arrived late to the party.

 

The Blazer's engine sputtered and died.

 

"Mulder?  What the hell is-" Agent Reyes started uncertainly, turning to stare at it.

 

Mulder squinted as he tried to block the light with one hand and shield the baby with his other.  He ordered his body to run, but his legs refused to obey.  His knees gave way. Fear ensnared him like a spider's web. He needed to hide, to protect the baby, but he couldn't.  He cowered and waited, with his back against the SUV's tire and William against his chest, as the light came closer.

 

He saw Reyes' mouth moving in slow motion, yelling his name. She could have been miles away for all her words registered in his brain.

 

The UFO loomed huge and eerily silent, except for a low hum, like high voltage electric lines.  Its intricate underbelly paused over them. Mulder waited for the beam to pull him up - or to pull William away from him.  The light bathed everything in white, bleaching out all color and taking up the entire sky.

 

As abruptly it appeared, it vanished.

 

At first, Mulder thought he was on the spaceship again, huddled in a corner like a frightened animal, trying to escape the needles and drills and saws.  As the spots faded from his retinas and he could breathe again, he felt William's wet face against his neck.  Another second, and he saw Reyes crouched beside him, gun in her hand.  Mulder took a breath, filling his lungs with the icy air. He smelled frozen mud and car exhaust and baby shampoo: things found on planet Earth.

 

He wasn't on the ship.  They weren't on the ship.

 

"Are you okay?  Is he?" Reyes asked. She pulled the blanket aside to check the baby. "Mulder?"

 

He nodded numbly.

 

He wasn't on the ship. They hadn't taken William.

 

"Can you get up?"

 

They weren't on the ship.

 

He flinched as she touched his arm.  To his adrenaline-heightened senses, her hand felt like fire and scratched like sandpaper.

 

"Don't," he said, shrugging away. She backed off.

 

"Where'd it go?" Reyes asked as he got to his feet.

 

"I don't know," Mulder mumbled. She turned in a slow circle in the center of the gravel road. He held the baby and watched the horizon. "It's not gone," he promised. He still felt the dull pull at the base of his skull.  He'd felt it for too many months to ever forget it. "It's here."

 

She raised her weapon. "Where?"

 

"I don't-"

 

The beam appeared again, this time illuminating the valley floor.  Mulder saw the outline of the ship glowing blue against the black night sky, and the stars distorting as the atmosphere rippled around the hull.  The beam of light moved slowly toward the compound, searching.

 

"No!" he yelled.

 

Mulder pushed William into Reyes' arms and scrambled down the slope, the tree branches lashing at him.  He half ran, half slid down the slippery hillside, toward the light shining between the saplings like a beacon.  Behind him, he heard Reyes yelling for him to stop, to come back, but he couldn't.  Her shouts and William's frightened cries faded, blocked out by the white glow ahead of him.

 

He reached the valley floor and jumped to reach the top of the fence. He shoved the toes of his boots into the rusty chain-link. In two moves, he was over the top, barely feeling the metal biting into his jacket and flesh. He landed hard, got to his feet, and sprinted through the frozen weeds.  His heart pounded, his lungs strained, and his boots flew over the uneven field.  They couldn't take Scully. They could take him again, but not her. She had a baby.

 

It was a setup. Ophiuchus. The cult. The whole task force and undercover operation. A setup to lure Scully to one of the pickup points. They were taking abductees again. She was an abductee.

 

The ship loomed above him. It spanned from hill to hill, filling the sky. His mind couldn't reconcile how anything so large stayed in the air. He kept running, and he passed the Hostage Rescue Team members as they stood staring upward in stupefied disbelief.

 

A helicopter hit the ground with its blades chopping into the dirt and its cockpit crumpling like an aluminum can.  He saw it and felt it, but heard no sound.

 

He saw Scully beneath the center of the ship, wearing a winter coat over a long white nightgown. She stood alone. She looked dazed, and the wind blew her hair wildly.

 

He screamed her name. She didn't look toward him.

 

As Mulder reached the edge of the beam, instead of drawing him in, an invisible force tossed him back like an unwanted rag doll. He hit the back of his head hard, and the world went nauseously bright again. Time slowed to an uneven crawl. He got to his feet, swaying drunkenly, and took a step toward it, still yelling for Scully. But the beam vanished.  In less than a heartbeat, so did the ship, leaving nothing behind but darkness.

 

****

 

End: Book I

 

Book II: Pre-apocalyptic romance on a per diem

 

****

 

The thing about the Midwest - there's a hell of a lot of it. America's breadbasket, the Bible belt, amber waves of grain and all that.  Good people, honest living, Jell-O salads, and corn as far as the eye can see. 

 

But right in the middle of a long drive sat an oasis they'd dubbed the Mystic Pizza Hut, though neither of them had seen the movie. The restaurant was eternally empty except for an old woman who resembled Dr. Zaius, the blonde ape in “Planet of the Apes.” She served as a combination waitress, cook, and cashier, the sole proprietor of the restaurant at the far edge of the known universe. No other cars parked in the parking lot, no other customers ate in the restaurant, and nothing but corn fields stretched for fifty miles in any direction.

 

Corn, corn, corn, Pizza Hut, corn, corn, corn.

 

"Some view," Scully commented the first time they'd driven through, belted into the front seat of their rented Ford Taurus and on their way to the wonders of Lake Okabogee. 

 

In August 1993, she'd still worn her 'look, I bought my first real suit' suits and her hair remained its original shade of red. It was Before. Before her abduction. Before her father's and sister's deaths. Before Mulder's father's death. They were newly-minted partners, and he hadn't quite decided if she liked him or not. She tolerated him, watched his back, and thought he was crazy, but he hadn't decided if she liked him or not.

 

He hadn't decided if he'd liked her or not, either.

 

"Keep an eye out for crop circles," he'd responded. He chewed a toothpick into wet splinters as he drove and savored his role as chief weirdo. If he got laughed at, he preferred to be the one making the jokes. "We can make a side trip."

 

"Didn't Kevin Costner build a baseball field here?  'I see great things in baseball'? Or is that 'Bull Durham'? All his baseball movies run together for me."

 

He slowed the car and turned his head toward her. "Do not mock the acting talent of Kevin Michael Costner," he'd cautioned her, sounding haughty. "Remember 'JFK.'"

 

"I'm not mocking him," she responded earnestly. "I revere him. I have a shrine to him in my bedroom. His autographed glossy photo is right beside my life-sized cutout of Keanu Reeves."

 

She toyed with the little gold cross on her necklace, looking out the window as if bored.

 

He turned his toothpick around and gnawed the other end for a while. Eventually he asked, "You don't have a shrine, do you, Scully?"

 

"Of course I do," she insisted, but her lips twitched suspiciously.

 

"'Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves'?" Mulder asked.

 

"Raw, misunderstood genius.  Look - a Pizza Hut."

 

He chewed his toothpick, hit his blinker, and grudgingly decided he liked her.

 

Another blue Ford Taurus, another case: April 20, 1997. She was a few years and a world away from the Dana Scully who'd first intruded into his basement lair armed with science and a scornful eyebrow. She'd become more severe, more guarded, honed as delicate and dangerous as the edge of a sword.  She'd lost her sister and innocence, and his quest became hers. Friends fell away as X-files consumed her life as they consumed his. She was his ally and polar opposite, and he couldn't imagine the journey without her. They were partners, friends, occasional opponents, and an elusive something more he hadn't been able to characterize. 

 

Then a small mass appeared between her sinus and cerebrum, and his world came crashing down. Those were the Cancer Days.

 

She'd cut her hair shorter, blow-dried it straight, and dyed it too bright. She'd lost weight until he saw the outline of her ribs through her blouses.  She wore black exclusively, as if mourning the end of her own life.  She'd demanded a desk.  Refused an assignment.  Refused him. Slept with a dark-haired, dark-eyed stranger and gotten a tattoo and said it was her life to live as she pleased.  Or die as she pleased. As an Oxford-educated shrink and FBI profiler, it took until 1999 for Mulder to realize a possible connection.

 

"You want the usual?" Dr. Zaius had asked as Mulder settled into the first of a dozen empty booths in the empty Pizza Hut.

 

He hadn't realized they had a 'usual.' Though it violated all laws of franchise economics, they might have been her only customers in the last three and a half years.

 

"What'd we have last time?"

 

"Medium pan with extra cheese, onions, green peppers, banana peppers, black olives, and double mushrooms," Dr. Zaius responded impassively, "and two diet sodas."

 

Mulder blinked and agreed.

 

Scully was taking one of her many trips to the bathroom he wasn't supposed to notice.  He had to stop the car earlier so she could vomit into a ditch - one of the side effects of chemo. He wasn't supposed to notice the puking, either. Cancer: the other C word. The topic they did not talk about.

 

She had no idea he had a stake in her life. He valued her beyond her ability to put in sutures, run a toxicology screen, and shoot a perpetrator dead center-of-mass. She made him normal. She anchored him, centered him. She was his lifeline to the rest of humanity, and he felt the dark undercurrent pulling her away, one day, one nosebleed at a time.

 

As she returned from the bathroom, he dropped quarters in the old jukebox, summoned Jim Morrison, and requested, "Dance with me, Agent Scully." He’d dreamed of dancing with her - finding a dim corner in a smoky dive and dancing the night away to the gods of rock-n-roll.  Buying her a beer and talking about all things terrestrial and non-mutant like two normal human beings.  Laughing. Embracing, perhaps. Living. 

 

Scully shook her head and slid into the booth. She swallowed as if fighting against a bad taste in her mouth.

 

"Come on, dance with me.  He is the lizard king." He moved in time to the haunting, psychedelic beat. "Riders on the storm..."

 

As if ignoring him, she asked, "May I have water?" as Dr. Zaius brought the sodas.

 

"He ordered diet."

 

"I'm sorry.  I'd like some ice water and a salad, please."

 

"Breadsticks," Mulder suggested. He abandoned his singing career and wandered to the table.

 

Scully shook her head again, massaging her temples.

 

"I can get the case file from the car.  We can talk about it," he offered, as if they couldn't talk about it for the rest of their three-hour drive from nowhere to nowhere.

 

Yet another terse, "No."

 

"You want some Tylenol?"

 

"No, I want you to turn the noise off," she said irritably.

 

He slouched back to the jukebox. Unable to find an off button, Mulder used his mechanical expertise to reach behind the machine and jerk the plug out of the outlet. Jim Morrison's hypnotic voice slowed and died, and the purple and red lights faded away.

 

He returned to their booth, hands shoved in his pockets and shoulders slouched. He watched as Scully looked at the tall plastic cup the waitress brought, but didn't seem to trust her stomach enough to take a sip. 

 

"Scully..." he started, but she didn't look up.

 

It shouldn't be like this.  She was a young woman with her whole life in front of her.  She should have a home and kids and a dog and a minivan and a picket fence.  She should have everything she dreamed of.

 

Mulder realized he had no idea what Scully dreamed of, but it probably wasn't mutants and UFO's or him.

 

"Scully, you're sick.  We're going home.  I'll call the airport and get a flight back to DC."

 

"No.  We're on a case.  I'm fine."

 

"You're not fine," he insisted. "You're sick."

 

She peeled her straw from its paper wrapper and stabbed it into the cup. "I'm too sick to cover your back? Is that what you're saying?"

 

He knew this sport: Mulder-baiting.  She was terse and defensive, he was brusque and bulletproof, and they retreated to their separate corners, licked their wounds and waited for the next round. As good as they'd gotten at the game, he didn't know how many more days they had as sparing partners.

 

"No, it's not what I'm saying."

 

"What, Mulder?"

 

She stopped punishing her ice water and stared at him coolly, waiting for him to say something so she could pounce on it.

 

"I don't want to do this, Scully - have this argument. I'm saying I haven't seen you eat in days.  You take handfuls of pills. You look tired. You shake. You have nosebleeds. You're too skinny. You won't talk to me. I don't know if your cancer is getting better or worse-"

 

 "It's getting worse," she said, and he felt his stomach turn inside out. "The tumor is growing."

 

He'd moved his lips soundlessly. Fear settled over him like a cold mist.

 

"The headaches are worsening.  The ringing in my ears.  The nosebleeds.  I'll begin having vision problems as the tumor presses against the optic nerve.  Seizures or motor tics are likely.  There will be mental status changes: confusion, problems with short-term memory, judgment, speech," she listed clinically. "You're right. I won't be able to do fieldwork much longer.  It won't be safe for either of us.”

 

He shook his head, refusing to listen. "What are your doctors doing about it?" he demanded.

 

"Everything they can.  I have some tests scheduled," she continued. "I'll know more next week."

 

"About your prognosis?"

 

"My prognosis is terminal, Mulder.  It's a matter of how long."

 

He exhaled the painful breath stuck in his chest. "How long?" he asked in a voice sounding too calm to be his.

 

"At best: few months. I want to work as long as I can. I need to.  This is, this is all I have."   

 

"No, it's not." He put his hand over hers on the smooth tabletop. "Scully, you can't talk like this.  You said you have things to finish, and you do. You have your whole life ahead of you. I need you.  You can't leave me."

 

She'd stared at their hands, watching his fingertips stroking hers.

 

"Are you Eddie Van Blundht again?" she asked tiredly, as though it wouldn't make much difference if he was.

 

He shook his head. "No.  Let's go home.  Okay?"

 

She agreed.  On the plane, she'd slept against his shoulder all the way to DC.  She drooled on his suit in-flight, and held his hand during the rough landing, and he let her.

 

October 13, 1999. After. After in vitro. After cancer and Antarctica. After Emily. After Diana.  His hair was still growing back after a bad haircut courtesy of C.G.B. Spender's doctors, but the scars had started to fade. Scully still wore black but her clothes seemed softer - silk and cashmere and things that felt nice if he brushed against her.  Her smiles were rare but honest, and she cared enough to threaten to hurt him if he annoyed her.

 

He leaned over the Mystic Pizza Hut's jukebox, surveying the choices. "They have the Goo Goo Dolls, Scully. They're the voice of a generation. They said so in ‘Newsweek.’"

 

She'd rolled her neck tiredly. "Not our generation."

 

"Are you saying we're out of touch?"

 

"Name one Goo Goo Doll's song, Mulder."

 

He'd grinned, assumed his best Beastie Boy pose, and began, "Some... Body once told me the world was gonna roll me-"

 

"Smash Mouth; my nephew has the single." He must have looked crestfallen, because she added, "It's the one single he owns and he plays it on a twenty-four loop. It's grotesquely hypnotic.  I think it's a form of mind control urging teenagers to buy baggy pants and knit ski caps. It's probably designed to replace alien implants. You should open an X-file."

 

"Smash Mouth," he repeated thoughtfully. "I looked cool, though - right?"

 

"Very cool. For a thirty-eight-year-old white boy in a designer suit and tie trying to rap outside the Pizza Hut men's room."

 

"You gotta dance with me, Scully. It's my birthday."

 

"I thought it meant I had to spank you."

 

"Kinky." He paused as if considering. "I'm fine with it."

 

She smiled in faux-embarrassment. He was Mulder, king of innuendo, and she was Scully, his rational, practical, Oedipal figure, and she wasn't supposed to think he was funny. 

 

He dropped his quarters in the slot, pushed a few buttons, and the jukebox whirred as its mechanical innards slid into place. Red and violet lights began to flash, and electricity hummed through the old speakers.  Metal pans clanked at the back of the restaurant as Dr. Zaius made their pizza.  Joe Cocker's digital fingers slid over the strings of his guitar as a keyboard player played the melody.

 

Scully leaned against the side of the jukebox. The multi-colored light show reflected off her face and in her eyes.  From the speakers, a gravelly voice urged someone to hold on; I'll be back for you; it won't be long.  When the night comes.

 

She exhaled and rolled her neck from side to side, and shifted her high-heeled boots.  He probably wasn't supposed to see her fingers gently bouncing against the jukebox in time to the music.  She was his rational, practical Scully, and he wasn't supposed to be in love with her.

 

He was in love with her, though. And she loved him. He'd been inside her mind and heard her thoughts as Spender's doctors sliced into his brain. Diana till-death-us-do-part held his hand sympathetically but didn’t stop the scalpels. Unlike Diana, he found nothing manipulative in Scully's love, nor did Mulder sense white-hot passion.  In Scully's mind he found kindness, loyalty, trust. It was flannel pajamas love: easy to slide into, enjoy, and take for granted.  It was such a foreign emotion he'd almost passed it without recognizing it.

 

"Mulder, out of curiosity, do all your informants have to be paranoid schizophrenic UFO zealots who are probably hiding straight razors in their socks? Is it a prerequisite? Next time, before we spend six hours on a plane and four hours in a car, could you-"

 

"Dance with me, woman," he interrupted.

 

"No," she said, but shook her head like she wanted to be asked again.

 

"Come on; it's my birthday. Dance with me." He gave her his homeless puppy eyes and pushed out his lower lip. "You don't have to enjoy it; you can claim you're doing it out of pity."

 

She looked like she might refuse but pushed off the jukebox and into his arms. They moved in cramped circles on the five square feet of dance floor outside the Mystic Pizza Hut's men's room.

 

"Out of pity," she reminded him, and laid her head against his shoulder.  He slid his hand around her waist, negotiating with her gun for a place to rest.

 

He wanted to be inside her mind again, for a few seconds. He wanted to know if she realized how much it had hurt - she wanted his baby, but not him. His genetics in a specimen cup. He'd told her he was a gentleman and offered to buy her dinner before the first in vitro attempt, and to drive her home afterward. He'd quipped it would be the best date he'd had in six years. Scully had laughed nervously and said her mother was going to the doctor's appointment with her.

 

She hadn't gotten her baby, but she was still welcome to him if she wanted him.  He'd tried to put it into words three weeks earlier: she completed him. She'd smiled sadly, looked at his lips, and kissed his forehead.

 

"I just wanna be there beside you," he murmured as they moved, more lip-synching with breath than singing. "When the night comes."

 

He put his face beside hers, closing his eyes.  His lips brushed her cheek in a way easily be excused as accidental. Repeatedly. He had big hands and she had a small waist; understandably, his fingers rested more at the top of her hips than the bottom of her ribcage.

 

The oven door squeaked, and the soda machine gurgled as Dr. Zaius fixed two diet sodas. 

 

"There’s lunch," Scully whispered, with her head still against his shoulder.

 

"Um-hum," he responded, still swaying as the song ended.  On the other side of the restaurant, Dr. Zaius carried their food to the table, left plates, forks, and a stack of napkins, and vanished into the kitchen again. 

 

Scully stepped back as if waiting for him to let go of her. 

 

On the jukebox, the sound of Joe Cocker's guitar and keyboard faded, but restarted in time to the lights and smooth backbeat. "Hold on," Joe's leathery voice requested, and promised, "I'll be back for you; it won't be long."

 

"Again?"

 

"It is my birthday," he answered, pulling her back to him.  The old wooden floor felt rough and uneven under their feet, and the air smelled of uncooked pizza dough and liquid hand soap.  Pre-apocalyptic romance on a per diem; one takes what one can get.

 

"How many times are you going to play this song?"

 

"How long are you gonna keep dancing with me?" he countered.

 

She sighed and leaned into him. 

 

"Five," he admitted. "Five times."

 

She was so close; if he used his imagination, he could feel the outline of her breasts against his chest, separated by his T-shirt, shirt, and suit coat, and her blazer, shirt, and bra.  If he used his imagination, he could believe she wasn't dancing with him because it was his birthday.  She loved him.  She did.  Not the way he wanted her to love him or the way he loved her, but she did.  She loved and he was in love - a painful combination.

 

"She was my ex-wife," he said quietly as Joe Cocker got to the part about nothing left to lose and nothing left to fear. "Diana was.  We discovered the X-files together, we lived together, and we were married for six months before she left."

 

"Why did she leave?"

 

"According to our marriage counselor? Because I was relentlessly preoccupied with work and emotionally inaccessible.  I think that's the two-hundred dollar an hour way of saying I was an ass."

 

"You're not an ass," she assured him. "You're challenging."

 

He smirked. "No, I'm an ass. I'm surprised she stayed as long as she did. Can you imagine being married to me?"

 

Her head rested against his shoulder, so he couldn't see her face. He felt his heart skip a beat.  He cleared his throat and mumbled about their food getting cold.

 

"I didn't ask you to be the- To donate," Scully said, avoiding the word 'father.' "Because of Diana. It had nothing to do with her. I couldn't imagine anyone else."

 

"It's DNA, Scully. You could have asked any other healthy adult male and had it be a lot simpler."

 

"I know you.  I wanted a child with the characteristics I value in you: intelligence, passion, courage, honesty-"

 

"But you didn't want me." He exhaled and buried his face in her hair.

 

The baby they hadn't made was one of their unmentionable topics. There was her abduction.  Her cancer and the delicate chip in the back of her neck keeping it at bay. There was Diana and Diana's wake, which rivaled the parting of the Red Sea. Ed Jerse and Philadelphia. Emily. Philip Padgett. The almost-kiss before Antarctica. 

 

"Did you want me to want you?" she asked softly.  He felt the tension in her body and sensed her wanting to pull away.

 

"That came out wrong," he lied. "I- Shit. Never mind."

 

He retreated to the emotional shallow end for a few verses.

 

"I'm glad it didn't work," he said eventually. The song ended, and the CD whirred as it restarted. "With me.  I wanted it for you, but knowing what I know now: whatever Spender wanted with my brain tissue, whatever happened with the artifact... I'm glad in vitro didn't happen."

   

If the last, desperate attempt had succeeded instead of ending in tears, she'd have been pregnant. He shifted his hand on her waist, bringing it closer to her flat stomach.

 

"What if things were different? Between us? Would you still feel that way?"

 

"You mean what if we were lovers?" he asked huskily, and her head nodded against him. "We're not," he said. "You're my best friend. You're the one woman in the world who takes pity on me and dances with me on my birthday. And you smell nice."

 

"Thank you," she answered politely.

 

"Three more," he'd reminded her as Joe Cocker's weathered voice promised he'd be back again, it won't be long.  When the night comes.

  

****

 

The first time, it happened the way Mulder never wanted it to: out of darkness and grief and pity.  On his unforgiving living room rug, beneath the blue light from the fish tank, without the pretense of a kiss or a pillow, and in a blur of sensations he barely remembered.

 

She'd come to him, calmly trying to explain why his mother chose to end her own life.  There was no conspiracy, no murder, no hidden message, and no answers - just a disfiguring cancer slowly destroying the body that had given him life. 

 

Scully kept saying words he couldn't fathom, and he'd fought them, making accusations and taking pot shots at the fog. The dam inside him broke, and all the hurt and anger and fear poured out, soaking the shoulder of her blouse with tears.

  

The world was too black to navigate, but he felt her warm body against his and heard her whispering to him as he clung to her like a lost, frightened child.  He knew what he said didn't make sense, but it didn't matter.  Her answers didn't make sense, either.  Nothing made sense except his arms around her and her arms around him as he sobbed.  She kept him steady as the world crumbled.

 

The collar of her blouse was damp as he nudged it aside to press his lips against her skin.  She let him stay a long time, stroking his back as she tried to soothe him. The sky outside threatened snow, and his apartment was cold and shadowed. Her skin tasted like the ocean, and he smelled fabric softener, shampoo, and hints of starch and makeup and perfume.  And sweat.  Honest, familiar, everyday smells.  He kissed a soft place under her ear, feeling her pulse against his lips.

 

She pulled back, gently trying to untangle their bodies.  They'd slid out of the chair and to the floor, with her arms draped around him like a blanket.

 

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, not looking at her as she moved away.

 

"Let's get you to bed," she said softly. "I'll check your medicine cabinet. There's probably something to help you sleep."

 

He shook his head, refusing.  He didn't want a pill to numb him, and pull him farther from the conscious world and into nightmares.

 

"Tell me what you want," she whispered, pushing his hair back from his face. "What, Mulder?"

 

"I don't want to be alone." He kept trying to catch his breath but couldn't. There wasn't enough air in the world.

 

"I won't let you be alone." She probably thought he was about to put a gun to his head.

 

"You won't leave me?" he asked, not caring how pitiful he sounded.

 

She kissed his forehead and wiped the tears from his cheeks. "No, I won't leave you."

 

He looked up at her. He tried to get his emotions under control and maintain some dignity, but he couldn't.  He had too many thoughts in his head, and he wanted to bang it against something until his skull split to make them stop.  He pressed his palms against his temples, starting to squeeze.

 

Scully's hands were on his, pulling them away and telling him to stop, not to hurt himself.  He struggled but she held on. It didn't take long for her to win.  His strength was gone, wrung out, and he sat, slouched against the front of his creaky leather sofa.

 

"I'm frightening you," he said hoarsely.

 

"No," she assured him, kneeling on the floor beside him. "No, you don't frighten me."

 

He looked at her helplessly, and reached out, touching the warm gold cross at the base of her throat.  Except for the rise and fall of her chest, she didn't move.  His hand slid to her heart, feeling the pulse beneath her breast.  He leaned forward and put his lips over the beat, thanking God for it. He could stand everything but losing her. He'd lost his mind, but she remained. The world turned upside down and the Heavens fell, but Scully remained with him.

  

"Is this what you want? What you meant?"

 

He nodded dumbly, though he had no idea what he meant or even what the question had been.

 

She unfastened the buttons of her shirt and let it slip from her shoulders.  Fascinated, he watched his fingertips as they slid over the silky fabric of her bra.  A nipple rose, pressing against his thumb, and chill bumps formed on her chest.

 

He felt clumsy and drunk, as though he was as teenage boy groping his girlfriend in the back of his father's car. Instead of unfastening her bra, he pushed the straps down from her shoulders and got them twisted with her shirt.  As she tried to untangle it and undress, he pulled her nipple into his mouth hungrily.  Her back arched and her head fell back, her eyes closed.

  

Instinct took over: a visceral, unthinking insistence. She was underneath him, smooth and soft and tasting of copper.  Her hips rose, her slacks slipped down, and her legs parted as her arms went around his neck.

 

No, this wasn't what he wanted - her giving herself to him out of kindness or sympathy, the way she'd donate blood or write a check to save the whales. 

 

Jeans open, boxers shoved down, he paused over her, trying to think. She waited, watching him.  Outside, the cold wind whispered between the bare tree branches, and he shivered. She ran her fingers through his hair and cupped his face with her palm.

 

"Is this real?" he asked hoarsely, not certain. 

 

She nodded it was.

 

All the tears had poured out, and he felt so dry inside.  If she let go of him, he might dissolve into dust and blow away.

 

"I don't want it to be." He buried his face in her tangled hair and himself, slowly, inch by inch, in her.

 

She inhaled and blew out slowly, as if trying to relax. 

 

"...hurting you?" he panted, as white-hot pinpricks exploded throughout his body, the agonizing pleasure making him shudder.

 

"No," she answered, though she wouldn't have told him if he was.

 

Her fingertips pushed his T-shirt up and stroked the small of his back. He heard her panting, felt her tight body around his, each stroke taking him deeper inside her. He'd never leave. He'd stay there, blocking everything out.  Deeper and deeper, until there was nothing else.  He heard her tell him it was all right, and it was - for a few precious seconds, everything was all right.

 

It was over too soon. Reality rushed back, overwhelming him.  Scully held him, not complaining about his weight, or the cold, hard floor, or being wedged in the narrow space between the sofa and the coffee table.

 

He listened to the wind for a long time, keeping his eyes closed.

 

"Are you okay?" she asked softly.

 

He nodded he was - though he wasn't - and sat back, tucking in and pulling the front of his jeans together.  Her hair was tousled, and her face and chest had flushed.  She'd managed to get her shirt off, but her bra was still around her torso, pushed down and turned inside out. Her slacks and panties bunched around her ankles, and she still had her boots on.  No, she hadn't come.  She hadn't even come close. He was a big boy; he didn't need to ask.  

 

If he had flights of fancy about 'consummating their love,' his mind conjured a different scenario.

 

He offered his shaking hand, helping her sit up.  He started to help her pull her blouse closed but she stiffened, and he realized she'd rather do it herself. Fucking her was impersonal; helping her dress afterward could be construed as intimate.

 

"Do I say I'm sorry?" he'd asked, avoiding her eyes.

 

"No," she'd answered quietly.

  

****

 

The second time, she came to him, because he never would have come to her.  He'd tossed and turned for an hour, thinking about old loves and new ones and fate and doctors named Waterston.  He'd turned his bedroom television on, muting the volume, and watched infomercials with captions.  He decided he desperately needed a juicer, a NordicTrack, and a food dehydrator, but probably wouldn't by morning.  He checked on Scully, making sure she was still asleep on the couch. He beat his pillow into submission, shucked off his T-shirt, and found the uneasy edges of sleep. He woke to Scully beside his bed, backlit by the test pattern on the television screen.

 

"Hey," he mumbled sleepily, scratching the center of his bare chest. "I know; I'm a bad host.  Sorry." He stretched and sat up, grumbling placidly. "Okay.  I'm moving.  Bed's all yours."

 

"No, stay," she whispered. "I didn't want you to move."

 

"You need a pillow?" He swung his legs over the edge of the mattress. "Or are you heading home?"

 

"No, Mulder, I…"

 

"Is something wrong?"

 

"No.  Nothing.  I was watching you." Her chest rose as she took a deep breath. "You love me, don't you?" she asked, as though she woke up, wandered in, and wanted to check.

 

He looked up at her. "You know I do."

 

"If I said I wanted to be with you tonight, what would you do?"

 

His rational Scully - testing their null hypothesis.

 

"This." He pulled her down to him and pressed his mouth lightly to hers.

 

He'd kissed her before, giving in to an impulse at the edge of the new millennium. This time, she melted into him like ice into iced tea.

 

"Mulder..." she whispered, caressing his name.

 

"Was that not the right answer? Do I stop?" he murmured, kissing down her neck. "Do we?  What are we doing, Scully?"

 

"I don't know."

 

He moved back, looking into her eyes. "I love you."

 

"I know."

 

"No, you don't," he whispered to her. "You can't even imagine."

 

"I-" she started as his fingertips outlined the curve of her backside. She inhaled sharply, her muscles tightening.

 

"Do you want me to stop?"

 

His heart beat twice.

  

"No," she exhaled, and he surged forward, urging her lips apart and mapping her body with his hands. As he kissed her, he felt her skin growing hot, her breath coming faster, and her fingers in his hair.  His every neuron was alive, hungry with want and pulsing with fear she might pull away at any second. The two - passion and fear - collided like thunderclouds tumbling together as the storm rolled in. Every kiss and caress had a dangerous edge, and the more he had, the more he wanted. He was a junkie, and she was his drug. Crack in DKNY.

 

"Take off your clothes," he requested hoarsely. His lips stung and felt swollen.

 

She skinned her green sweater over her head and twisted to unzip her skirt. Her nylons came off along with the skirt and slip. She stood beside his bed in her little matching bra and panties, a beautiful ivory silhouette against the television screen.

 

"All your clothes."

 

He was still half-certain he was dreaming.

 

She unfastened the satin bra, slid it off her shoulders, and let it fall to the floor.  Her breasts were small, soft, like the rest of her, and the nipples were erect from arousal rather than cold.  She slid the panties down from her hips, stepped out of them, and stood before him, shoulders back and hair tousled wantonly. Mesmerized, he drew his finger down the pale profile of her breast. He moved back, pushing the covers down and making a place for her on the rumpled bed.

 

"You don't get to control this," he whispered. "I'm not gonna love you on your terms."

 

He flat-out lied. He'd love her if her terms included a bullwhip and a branding iron. He needed the feel of her breasts against his bare chest. He needed the smell of her becoming aroused and the rough sound his skin made as it slid against hers. He needed to hear her moan and gasp as he touched her, to feel her thighs tremble and her back arch.

 

He filled both hands with her breasts, squeezing, massaging, and thumbing the nipples.  He sucked, he bit gently. He rolled them between his teeth and tongue, making her whimper. He slid his tongue to her navel, tasting the salt and forbidden fruit of her skin, and pushed her thighs farther apart, kneeling between them. She flushed, and her lower lip pulled tight over her bottom teeth.

 

She was exquisite - the borderland of her chest as it sloped into the twin peaks of her breasts, and down to pale plane of her stomach. The undiscovered country of her lay before him, waiting.

 

"What?" she asked breathlessly, opening her eyes.

  

"Nothing. I- I was looking at you. You're so beautiful."

 

"Mulder," she requested in a voice like an uncommitted sin.  

 

The night breathed fire, lawless and passionate. Her lips and teeth found his nipples, his earlobes, and her nails grazed his back as she spoke to him in a language of pants and moans and desperate whimpers.  He was inside her, on top of her, underneath her, his head thrown back in ecstasy and fists grasping desperately at the sheets.

 

He opened his eyes, watching her, mesmerized as his body slid in and out of hers. He put his hands on her hips, guiding her up and down. "Come on," he urged, but she shook her head it wasn't going to happen.

 

"Can't," she said, collapsing on his chest.

 

"Yeah, you can, baby." In one motion, he flipped her onto her back, her legs apart, and her hands above her head. He covered her palms with his, interlacing their fingers.

 

Her eyes flashed defiantly as she stared up at him, and her body crackled like a cat coming in from a cold night.  She could have stopped him with one syllable, one hint of distress, but she didn't.

 

"You don't get to control this," he whispered as he penetrated again, hard enough to leave her sore the next morning.  Her legs parted farther, her hips rose to meet his, and her teeth sank into his shoulder as he thrust into her, over and over. 

 

He heard her telling him not to stop, and he didn't.  Faster, harder, deeper, until she cried out, saying his name as she came.

 

"It's just Mulder," he panted, and kissed her sweaty forehead.  He withdrew and pushed up on his elbow, letting go of her hands and looking down at her. "You don't need to address me as a deity."

 

"Okay," she agreed, nodding, still trying to catch her breath.

 

"I love you."

 

Another dazed, wordless nod.

 

She moaned and shivered as he penetrated again, this time slower, setting an easy, lazy pace. She wrapped her legs around his waist and arms around his neck, surrounding him.  He wanted the night to last for eternity, to defy the laws of time and space and human endurance and never end.  Two bodies, but one flesh, joined forever.

 

"I love you," he repeated, and she kissed his shoulder, pressing her lips against the place she'd bitten a moment earlier.

 

He'd find the marks on his skin the next morning, as he woke up alone to the sun shining through his bedroom window and the television weatherman predicting a great day. 

 

****

 

The cigar-puffing, salsa-dancing, blue martini-drinking craze hadn't made it to Rick's, which was why the regulars liked it. Atop its wobbly stools, men still referred to John "Cougar" Mellencamp, and the “Hotel California/Born to Run” debate continued, with the liberals holding out for "Layla." The bartender served any drink as long as it was light beer, beer, or whiskey, and there wasn't a nonsmoking section.  The ladies' room didn't get much use. If it did, the darts area overlapped with the dance floor, adding an element of danger to anyone unmanly or drunk enough to dance. The jukebox held every Bob Seger album, and the Silver Bullet Band sang “Against the Wind” as Scully blew in.

 

She came through the door like a force of nature, her trench coat billowing and her oversized umbrella straining against the storm.  Every head in the place turned toward her. Most of the men did the mental odds, apparently decided they had no chance in Hell, and went back to their drinks.

 

"This place got some class," the man sitting beside Mulder observed appreciatively. "Ooh-rah."

 

Without comment, Mulder left his second beer on the bar and went to greet her. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his old blue jeans as he walked.

 

"Hi," he said softly, keeping a safe distance as she shook out her wet umbrella.

 

Scully responded, "Oh my God, Mulder," unfastening her trench coat and pushing her hair back from her face.  The humidity made it curl, framing her face in wild auburn waves.  Her cheeks flushed, making her eyes look sapphire blue in the dim light.

 

He remembered to breathe.

 

"I told you 'Mulder' is fine," he reminded her. "'My God Mulder' isn't necessary."

 

"No, I meant the storm."

 

He leaned down, grazing her cool cheek with his lips. "I think I saw Noah and some giraffes heading for the ark."

 

She exhaled in frustration, vainly trying to get her hair to stay tucked behind her ears. "Maybe we should join them. All right; I'm here. What's so important?"

 

"I'm-I'm glad you came.  I didn't expect you to.  Do you want a beer?"

 

"A beer?" 

 

He glanced over his shoulder, and the row of men at the bar quickly focused on anything besides Scully.

 

"They have Michelob.  Or Michelob light?"

 

"Mulder, it's pouring rain. I drove all the way over here at eleven o'clock at night, and you're asking if I want a beer? Your message said something was wrong. What's the emergency?"

 

He leaned against a scarred table beside the door, slouching, and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. "I don't think I specifically said there was an emergency."

 

She frowned. "How much have you had to drink?"

 

He held up two fingers. "I said I was afraid something was wrong.  I was beginning to think something happened to you.  Or to your cell phone.  I left messages inviting you to dinner, to a late dinner, to my place for a really late dinner... I would have left one inviting you to breakfast tomorrow morning, but four unanswered messages is needy, five is stalking." 

 

"I told you I'd be at Quantico all afternoon."

 

"I know. If I forget, I have the skid marks you left outside our office this morning to remind me."

 

"You've had me do four autopsies since Thursday," she responded irritably. "Four. Not finding your 'ectoplasm' doesn't mean all the paperwork vanishes, Mulder. I still have your Blair Witch buddies to write up, and-"

 

He glanced at her from underneath his eyebrows, giving her a 'who do you think you're kidding' face. "It's me, Scully. I know this routine. What's wrong? You having second thoughts?"

 

He stepped forward. She stepped back.

 

"Scully..."

 

"I can't do this. I'll, I'll see you tomorrow," she said, and bolted out the door.

 

A male chorus of ominous monosyllables came from the bar as Mulder grabbed his jacket and followed Scully outside.

 

She huddled under her umbrella, making for her car parked down the block.  She hit the remote. The headlights flashed as the doors unlocked.

 

"You didn't say goodbye," he called, and the umbrella stopped. "This morning, last night - you just left."

 

She turned. Her chest rose and fell rapidly and her eyes took up her entire face.

 

He remembered to breathe.

 

"You don't call, you don't write." He took a step toward her. "Makes a guy feel kinda unloved.  Kinda unwanted. Kinda used."

 

She came back and joined him under the flapping awning outside the bar. "No, Mulder."

 

"What's wrong?" he repeated, reaching up to stroke her cheek.

 

"I've started to call you a dozen times today," she said shakily. "I didn't know what to say."

 

"Well, I'm here now. Talk to me."

 

"This isn't the right time."

 

His fingertips slid down the line of her neck and along the open neck of her blouse. "Please."

 

She inhaled and moved back a millimeter. "Mulder..." she started in an overly-gentle breakup voice.

 

"Oh shit." He dropped his hand and looked away. "Scully..."

 

"Last night-"

 

"No," he interrupted. "Last night was real. Don't you dare try to convince yourself otherwise."

 

"It was real.  Last night was wild and passionate and..." She looked up at him with those infinite blue eyes. "And perhaps ill-considered."

 

He closed his eyes, shaking his head side-to-side.

 

This wasn't happening.

 

"I’m not saying it wasn't wonderful, Mulder."

 

"Right," he said tightly. Ill-considered. She'd had seven years to consider it. She'd come to him, not the other way around. They were two intelligent, sober, reasonably sane adults who'd committed a consensual act. Twice.

 

"I'm not sorry it happened."

 

"Right," he repeated, stepping back. The cold March rain leaked through the old awning and dripped on the shoulders of his leather jacket.

 

Yes, he and Scully belonged in the relationship scratch-and-dent bin, offered to the dating public at a steep discount and with all their warning labels intact.  They were both seriously fucked up individuals, but he saw no reason for Armageddon and emotional dysfunction to stand in the way of true love.

 

He gritted his teeth. He stared past her and watched the storm punish the dark street. The B in the neon sign above Lou's Bar had burned out. It glowed LOU'S AR, which, normally, he would have found amusing.

 

"Mulder-" she started. "Please look at me.  Do you understand how hard this is?"

 

"What's hard about it? I love you. After all we've been through... You either want this with me or you don't." He balled his hands into fists and shoved them in his coat pockets. "And you don't. You want baby seats and white picket fences, and you know you'll never have them with me. Last night, you thought you could let the dream go, but you can't. You're angry and afraid, and you don't know what comes next, and it frightens you more."

 

The FBI hadn't paid him the big profiler bucks for nothing.

 

"I don't know what comes next, either, Scully," he confessed.

 

She bit her bottom lip white. A pained crease marred her forehead. "You're my best friend-"

 

"And you're mine. But I don't wanna be your consolation prize. It's not fair to either of us."

 

"I know it's not," she said hoarsely. She stepped forward, tiptoeing to kiss his cheek. "I'm sorry. I'll see you tomorrow." She turned, raised her umbrella, and walked away. Her high heels splashed against the sidewalk and her dark trench coat blew against her legs.

 

He stood under the failing awning, watching her make her way through the stormy night.  The cold rain found its way down his collar, soaking the back of his T-shirt.

 

"Scully," he called again, ready to lie, but too quietly for her to hear.

 

He watched her sit in her car for a few seconds before she wiped her eyes and started the engine. The tires squealed as she pulled away from the curb. 

 

****

 

She picked up the phone half a ring ahead of the answering machine, but Mulder heard a long pause before she said "Hello."

 

"It's me," he said, as though she didn't know. "Did I wake you?"

 

He sat on his sofa in his pajama bottoms and T-shirt, listening as the rain punished his living room windows. His bed was more comfortable, but it smelled like her. Correction: it smelled like them. There had been two bodies, not one. 

 

"Scully?"

 

She exhaled. "It's four in the morning, Mulder."

 

"I know. I hate to bother you, but-"

 

"Please don't do this," she said unsteadily. "Be relentless.  I need some time."

 

"Scully-"

 

"It's like falling." Her words tumbling over each other. "Being with you. It's like falling, and it's this thrilling, overwhelming feeling and I don't ever want it to end, but it's still falling and eventually, logically, I'm going to hit the ground."

 

"Scully-"

 

"What I feel for you - it's real. I know it is. But it isn't enough, Mulder. We need a foundation.  A direction. I don't want to spend my life falling, and, and I think you do."

 

He picked at the leg of his pajama bottoms and looked down at his bare feet, his stomach quaking.  His head pounded, and his neck ached.  He was sick with her, but she didn't want him. She wanted things he couldn't give her. Like a child. A life.

 

"Mulder?"

 

"Skinner called," he said, keeping his voice even. "A Morley Tobacco executive was found dead in his home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Skinner wants us on the next flight."

 

He heard her take a slow, deep breath as she put her Agent Scully persona on and buttoned it all the way to the top. "I can be ready in forty-five minutes."

 

"I'll pick you up," he said.

 

"I'll see you then," she responded.

 

"See you then," he said, and hung up.

 

****

 

Against all odds, he'd turn thirty-nine this year.

 

Mulder sat on the park bench, alone, looking back at the path of his life.

 

Twenty-seven years ago, he watched Samantha’s abduction from their living room, and in many ways, he remained a twelve-year old boy. War-worn and battle-scarred, but as solitary, as frightened, and as driven and single-minded. Scully was right. He perpetually chased the next big thing like a tiger after its tail.

 

He'd told Scully his priorities early on. Nothing - and no one – mattered except the search for his sister and the Truth.

 

He found Samantha, forever fourteen-years old and far from the clutches of the men who'd hurt her.  He'd found the Truth, or at least some version of it.  He'd found answers to discover no one who cared to hear them.

 

It was an anticlimactic way to round out the millennium and his first forty years on this Earth.

 

However, so were tobacco beetles.

 

Mulder sat near the Jefferson Memorial. He listened to the water lap at the south edge of the basin and the D.C. sightseers chatter as they posed for photos.  One more week and the cherry trees would be in full bloom, surrounding the Tidal Basin with a sea of pink and white petals.  The crowds began to thin, but tour buses still brought a few glowing newlyweds. He saw families with young children, and he saw old couples, walking slowly, hand in hand.

 

A man on a journey owns nothing except the essentials - air, sleep, dreams, the sea, and the sky.  Anything else he might stumble onto was providence and should be appreciated as such.

 

In other words, one takes what one can get.

 

Mulder watched Scully walking toward him, every movement planned and gracefully purposeful.  The light from the lowering sun glistened against her auburn hair. As she pulled off the lid, steam rose from the Styrofoam cup in her hand, drifting with the breeze.

 

"I was on my way to see you. Did the hospital release you?" she asked, stopping in front of him.  She'd come directly from the office, still in her tailored suit and high heels - designer body armor to protect a woundable soul. "Or are you AWOL? Should I call the Orkin Army?"

 

"Bug free," he whispered hoarsely. He gave her a thumbs up sign and nodded to her cup. "Coffee?"

 

"Tea.  I'm trying to get my stomach to settle down."

 

"Sick?" he rasped painfully.

 

"I'm fine. A little queasy."

 

He made a sympathetic face but leaned forward as she offered him a sip.

 

"You look tired," she observed, and he nodded. Going ten rounds with the Dust Buster of Death could do a fellow in. "You should be home, resting. What are you doing here, Mulder?  Your note said you wanted me to see something."

 

He gestured to the horizon. "Sunset.  Stay?"

 

She nodded and sat beside him, holding the cup on her lap. The sky reflected crimson in the Tidal Basin and spread out like a vast watercolor behind the cherry blossoms.  Shadows lengthened as night approached, gliding over the edge of east.  The first stars rose, watching from above as the city descended into evening.

 

"It's pretty," Scully said softly. "It's been a long time since we sat here and watched the sunset. This is nice."

 

"Yeah," he answered, and interlaced his fingers with hers.  Her palm was warm from the Styrofoam cup, and it felt small against his.

 

She looked at their hands but didn't pull away. 

 

She'd held his hand in the hospital, as if believing if she held tightly enough, Death couldn't take him from her. Each time he'd opened his eyes, she'd been beside his bed, but he stared at her, unable to speak. He'd heard the things she'd said to him, though - pleading for him to hold on, to keep breathing, to come back.

 

"From the other side of the universe, Scully," he'd wanted to promise melodramatically. "I'd come back from the gates of Hell for you. If you want me, even Death couldn't keep me from you."

 

Weeks had passed since they'd spent one night together, colliding like two primal forces with no thought of morning.  But morning came, with all its repercussions, and he understood her reasons for pulling back. He didn't like them, but he understood and respected them. At least, he kept trying to convince himself he did.

 

"I'm glad you're still here to see another sunset with me," she said eventually. "Very glad."

 

"Me too," he rasped, toying with her fingers. "Scully, I-" He wanted to say the perfect things he'd rehearsed in his head - the things fixing everything - but each syllable was a painful effort.

 

"I know; so do I," she answered softly, completing the conversation.

 

He gave her hand a squeeze, let go, and rested his arm along the back of the bench.  She resumed her two-handed grip on her tea.

 

"Venus," he said, pointing up at the blue-black sky.

 

"Yes. The early Greeks didn't realize Venus was a planet, or the Evening Star and the Morning Star were one in the same. To them, Venus was both Athena, the virgin Morning goddess of battle and reason, and Aphrodite, the Evening goddess of physical love and beauty."

 

"She sounds hot," he whispered, stroking the shoulder of her suit coat.

 

She gave him an eyebrow but shook her head and laughed softly. And didn't pull away.

 

"Walk?" he invited after a few minutes, gesturing to the path curving around the Tidal Basin.

 

"Are you up to walking?"

 

He stood, and made a muscle for her, pulling the fabric of his sweatshirt taut to show off his bicep.

 

"My hero," she deadpanned, getting up.

 

She walked beside him, still holding her Styrofoam cup rather than his hand.  

 

The lights came on inside the Jefferson Memorial, radiating between the classical columns.  The stone monument sat above the Tidal Basin like the Pantheon of Rome, looking down on the rippling water.

 

"This is nice," she repeated as they reached the base of the memorial, stepping up one step and turning to look at the building's reflection across the water.

 

"Tummy?" he asked, tugging gently at the front of her blazer.

 

"I'm fine.  Better."

 

The breeze rustled her hair and her skin glowed like pale marble. As much as he loved her mind and spirit, they were housed in the body of a woman who could have brought Rome to its knees.

 

Without thinking, Mulder closed his eyes and pressed his mouth lightly to hers. Her warm lips tasted like peppermint, and as he moved back a few inches, the space between them had an unfinished feel. She moved closer. He felt the change in her as subtly as a sailor sensed the tides. She stepped back, uncertain. Debating. Teetering.

 

"Can't be something I'm not, Scully," his tortured throat scratched out.

 

"I don't want you to be." She looked past him, focusing on the darkening April sky. "I don't want you to change for me."

 

He waited.  He'd laid his cards on the table a long time ago; the next move was up to her. 

 

People didn't remember days, they remembered moments. This was one of those moments; he felt it being etched into his soul.  He felt a turning point, a high-water mark, a bend in the road, and knew there would be no going back.  Only forward, to whatever the horizon held.  

 

"Where do we go from here?" she asked, looking into his eyes and fitting a thousand questions into six words. 

 

The cool breeze blew her hair over her face. He reached up, tucking it back behind her ear. "Metro station," he rasped slowly. "'Outer Limits' marathon.  Sci-Fi Channel.  Starts at eight."

 

She blinked and laughed self-consciously.

 

"We should go slow," she said. "If you're going to walk, we should go slowly. You're still recovering; you're at risk for pneumonia and-" 

 

"I can do slow," he whispered hoarsely before she launched into full doctor-mode.

 

She glanced up. "Can you?"

  

He nodded. "We have all the time in the world," he promised, his voice fading to rough breath. He took the cup of tea from her, interlaced their fingers again, and continued walking.

 

****

 

End: Book II

 

Book III: Brought to you by the letters F and U

 

****

 

"Sir?" the paramedic repeated as she smoothed the last Steri-Strip into place. "Do you remember?"

 

Mulder stared at her as he slouched on the back bumper of the ambulance. He remembered. He remembered everything: the light, the ship, and the cold emptiness afterward. The UFO took Scully, and the nothing it left behind settled into the rural Virginia valley like a killing frost, draining the color from his world.

 

"Do you remember the date of your last Tetanus shot?" the woman said slowly, as if repeating herself. Her words drifted away in puffs of white vapor. "Or should I give you another?"

 

"I've been dead since then," he mumbled, making the effort to speak. "You might wanna give me another."

 

"Okay..." the paramedic said and reached for a syringe. "If you won't go to the hospital, I want you to follow up with your primary care provider as soon as possible."

 

Mulder looked past her. Flashlights bobbed as FBI agents searched the fields and woods around the compound of The Church of the 13th Sign. The heat from the ship had scorched everything it touched, and the acrid smell of burnt weeds and dirt mingled with the scent of gunpowder.  Asphalt shingles melted, paint blistered, and several of the ruined outbuildings smoldered, with the gray smoke clinging to the ground.  The firefighters didn't bother to put them out. 

 

Against all odds, dawn approached like a traitor creeping over the black horizon.  Away from the compound, lights flashed as a Medevac chopper rose high in the sky, pivoted, and headed for the hospital.  The remaining cult members had been carted off for processing, most of the ambulances left with the injured FBI agents, and the medical examiner's vans arrived for the dead.

 

Both FBI helicopters had crashed as their engines failed and lay on their sides like a child's forgotten toys. White sheets covered the bodies in front of the church - cult members who rushed outside to greet the ship and directly into Ophiuchus' line of fire. Twelve adults, two children, and three FBI Agents lay scattered over the cold ground like fallen leaves. 

 

A line of reporters waited on the other side of the old chain-link fence, their cameras mechanical vultures scanning the scene. “Seventeen Dead After Improper FBI Raid, Dozens Injured” the headlines would read, splaying the gory photos across the front page and the morning news, heavy on blame, light on facts. The FBI hadn't negotiated with Ophiuchus, but they hadn't fired first and shot Ophiuchus to prevent him from killing more of his own people.  It wouldn't matter; heads would roll, and the truth would get lost in the media glare.

 

Any reports of a UFO would be officially denied.

 

"Do you have a primary care provider, sir?" the paramedic checked. "A doctor you see on a regular basis?"

 

"Yeah.  I do," Mulder said numbly.

 

"I want you to make an appointment as soon as possible."

 

Mulder squinted at the remains of the compound as the agents dissected it for clues. "That's gonna be tough," he mumbled.

 

Skinner approached, backlit by the headlights of a patrol car. His shoulders bowed, and his dark trench coat flowed behind him. He brought the baby carrier and diaper bag, and awkwardly set both in the back of the warm ambulance, behind Mulder.

 

William was awake. He had his little knit hat pulled tight over his head and the blanket pulled up to his chin. He studied Mulder with his serene blue eyes, and looked away, watching the paramedic.

 

"She's not here, is she?" Mulder knew the answer. He felt the hollowness inside him, like his soul had been stolen.

 

Skinner shook his head tiredly. "We've identified all the bodies. Hers isn't among them.  They're still searching the woods, though."

 

"They took her. Again."

 

"It looks that way." Skinner studied his shoes and massaged the bridge of his nose. "Agent Reyes took off with Agent Doggett. They have him stable but they're taking him by chopper.  She said to bring the baby to you, and she'll call you as soon as she can."

 

"Thank you," Mulder said automatically.  He hadn't realized Doggett was injured or given any thought to who had William.

 

"I'm calling Margaret Scully to come get the baby. Who do I call for you? Those Gunmen people?"

 

"I'm okay. She's patched up my-" He glanced down to see what was being patched. He had a jagged cut across his left deltoid. "My arm." He hadn't cleared the barbwire at the top of the fence as neatly as he'd thought.

 

"He's dazed," the paramedic offered. "I'd like a doctor to take a look at these blisters on his face."

 

"Can you keep him here? Keep an eye on him and the baby?  I'll send someone after them."

 

The paramedic nodded. She turned to smile and coo at the baby.

 

"We're gonna find her, Mulder," Skinner assured him. "We found you; we'll find her.  Do you hear me?"

 

"Yeah," he muttered, looking down at the dead weeds around his boots.

 

An agent called for Skinner, and the Assistant Director turned away, promising he'd be back.

 

Mulder closed his eyes, trying to block out the all-too-familiar sight of death, but he couldn't block out the sound and smell of it.  Long zippers hissed as the dead cult members were placed in plastic body bags, and metal stretchers clattered as they were carried away.  His nose stung with the peppery scent of scorched earth and gunpowder.  And blood - the coppery smell of it lodged in his throat and threatened to choke off his breath. 

 

However much he told himself it wasn't real, it was. It felt too real, and Mulder wanted to let his soul rise above it all.  He wanted to leave his ineffective body and reach out, to let his spirit interweave with the fabric of space until it found hers.  She was out there.  Somewhere.  He felt her pulling him, like binary stars orbiting each other - locked together, one star seen, one unseen to the naked eye.

 

"Mulder..." Scully's voice whispered, washing over him like a warm tide.

 

He opened his eyes but saw the same shadowy, smoking ruin. His shoulder throbbed, and his face felt scorched, and, behind him, William mewed.

 

"Is that what they call you?" the female paramedic asked gently. "Mulder? Is your name Mulder?"

 

He stared at her.

 

"Is your wife the FBI agent they're searching for, Mr. Mulder? The one who was undercover? I heard them talking about her."

 

He continued staring, hating her for daring to be any woman besides Dana Scully.

 

"I'm so sorry," the paramedic said. "This is her baby, isn't it?"

 

He looked up, searching the moonless sky. "Yeah."

 

****

 

He returned to Scully's apartment not because he lived there, but because William did.  The only signs of Mulder's presence during the last six weeks were a disposable razor and a toothbrush in the bathroom, a few clothes and a duffle bag in the bedroom, his running shoes beside the front door, and a NICAP coffee mug in the dish drain.

 

He laid the baby in the bassinet and gave the mobile a few twists. In Scully's bedroom, he sat heavily on the side of her bed. Outside the window, the sky was a thin shade of gray, still spitting sleet. At mid-morning in Georgetown, the well-shod and forward thinking braved the weather for a low-fat caffeine fix and a gourmet muffin. Mulder heard voices chattering on the sidewalk below as life went on, but it had no relevance to him.

 

It wasn't real. It wasn't happening. He'd listened to his gut instinct about the undercover assignment. He'd realized the setup and acted sooner. He'd run a few seconds faster and gotten to her before They did.

 

It wasn't real.

 

Any minute, Scully would come through her front door, breathless from the cold, carrying a cup of decaf for her, a cup of high octane for him, and a bag of baby sundries from the drugstore.  She'd ask if William was hungry, and Mulder would surrender the fussy baby to her gladly.  She'd lay back on the bed, open her blouse, and put William to her breast. Mulder would stretch out on the mattress, fold his arm under his head, and watch them.  Once William was sated and drowsy, they'd put the bassinet beside the bed and take a nap themselves, safe under the cover of tentative happiness and smooth percale sheets.

 

Any minute.

 

He stared at the empty bedroom doorway, waiting. He looked at the bedside phone, hoping against all logic it would ring and Skinner's voice would say it was a mistake; they'd found Scully hidden in the woods or one of the dilapidated buildings on the compound. She was cold, confused, but safe, and waiting for Mulder to take her home.

 

Any minute.

 

He let his body fall back on the mattress, his feet still on the floor.  He felt the bed spinning and the blood coursing through his veins. He closed his eyelids over his stinging eyes, rolled, grabbed Scully's pillow, and buried his face in her scent.

 

The furnace purred as it kicked on. Shoes passed on the frozen sidewalk, and the mobile above William's bassinette squeaked as it turned.  Mulder raised his head, checking on the baby, and laid his cheek against her pillow and closed his eyes again.

 

Any minute, Scully.

 

****

 

As straight-laced as Scully could be in her work persona, she was a sensualist in private, with her satin pajamas, scented candles, lotions and potions, and long, hot, Saturday soaks in the tub.  On Saturdays, the suit and high heels fell away, the coiffed hair got to curl randomly, and the soft woman behind the seventh veil came out to play.

 

The steam from the bathroom smelled like Neutrogena shower gel, and one of her expensive, multi-wicked candles flickered on the dresser.  It smelled exotic, like sandalwood and myrrh, and the flames made long shadows dance across the wall.  Her favorite Eagles CD played, and as he stretched, waking, the sheets felt cool against his bare skin.

 

Mulder pushed up on his elbow, grinning as he watched Scully approach. She'd twisted her hair up and fastened it with a plastic clip, but a few damp strands had worked loose. Instead of pajamas, she'd put on his white dress shirt, which hung to her knees. Her legs were bare, but socks covered her perpetually cold feet. She unfastened the clip and shook her head so her hair fell around her face, untamed.

 

"Hi," she purred, pausing beside the bed.  She slid one electric finger down his chest, tracing a lazy path and making the dark hair stand at attention.

 

"Hi," he exhaled. "You're something for a fellow to wake up to."

 

"A good something?" She licked her lips as she crawled onto the mattress, moving like a cat stalking its prey. "Or a bad something?"

 

"Oh, a bad, bad something.  Ooh-rah," he added under his breath, laying back. "Come here, Miss Bad Something."

 

She straddled his hips, inviting his hands to find their way up her freshly shaved legs, her thighs, and to the tiny lace panties and bare breasts beneath the oversized shirt. Her skin felt slippery from bath oil and superheated from the water and molded perfectly against his. His erection pressed against the crotch of her panties, and she rocked, rubbing against him. Her kisses lingered on his skin, sending little electric charges through his body.

 

"I want to be with you," she said, and slid her lips to his earlobe, which had a pulse all its own. "Not Them," she whispered in his ear.

 

He nodded. This wasn't his fantasy, but hers. "Tell me what you want."

 

"You," she answered. "Just you."

 

She unfastened the first button of her shirt and watched as he undid the rest. The flesh underneath was perfect, unmarred by scars or stretch marks. The body she gave to him had never been experimented on or wounded or carried a child. Her breasts were small and high, her stomach flat and firm. He took a nipple between his lips, sucking, and her fingers tightened in his hair.

 

"I love you, Mulder," he heard her whisper, as though she'd said it a thousand times before.

 

No games, no power struggles, no excuses or regrets.  Nothing left to prove or lose.  It wasn't the way he'd ever made love to her, but it was the way he'd wanted to.

 

He rolled and laid her back on the pillows, watching her watch him as he folded her shirt open, slowly exposing her breasts again. He slid the delicate panties down her hips.

 

The original Eagles crooned, the candle flickered fairy light, and her skin was warm and clean under his tongue. Her soft hands caressed his face and shoulders as they kissed, combining lips and tongues and souls. Her thighs trembled and opened wider as he touched between them.  He moved lower.

 

He heard a knock at the front door, far away and unrelated to them.

 

"Nice," he whispered, and blew across tender flesh, making her shudder. He ran his tongue over her for the first time. She whimpered and shifted her feet, toes curling. "Slick.  Like honey," he told her, glancing up.

 

She turned her head to the side, eyes clenched shut, before he lowered his mouth again, exploring her secrets. She was all around him: the sounds, the smells, the textures of her.  He could feel and taste her body warming to his, beginning to pull taut, like the strings of a violin, seeking release.

 

"Now," she requested in a voice no man with good sense would ignore.

 

As he made his way up her body, her sock feet ran up the backs of his thighs, drawing him down on top of her.  He kissed her, urging her lips apart and letting her taste herself on his tongue.

 

"Fast or slow?" he asked, pressing his erection against her, feeling her body start to open for his.

 

"Slow," she whispered. "Forever, Mulder."

 

"Forever," he echoed, promising.  He looked into her blue eyes, relaxed, and let himself fall into her.  Her breath felt hot against his shoulder, her body ready, and her arms safe and welcoming.

 

The person at the door knocked again, startling him.

 

Mulder woke. He found himself sprawled across the cold bed, with his face pressed into her pillow and his erection against her mattress.  He raised his head and looked around her bedroom.

 

"Scully," he called hoarsely, hopefully, as though she might have stepped out for a moment.

 

The sky outside the window looked a darker gray, but except for the uncomfortable tightness in his jeans and the wrinkled comforter, everything else seemed the same. His face and shoulder still ached, and he was still alone. There was no candle, no music. No welcoming arms, no sweet words, and no slick, inviting depths.

 

Mulder licked his lips, wanting to detect some trace of her on them, but he tasted nothing.

 

The furnace clicked off, the sidewalk outside bustled with the lunchtime crowd, and William started to fuss again.  As Mulder moaned and swung his legs over the edge of the mattress, a key turned the deadbolt lock in the front door.

 

****

 

Scully had taken her SIG-Sauer with her, but her Smith & Wesson was in the nightstand. Alternately, his Glock sat in his duffel bag on the bedroom floor. Mulder reached for the familiar Glock, fishing blindly inside the bag.  He found it as the front door opened, pulled the pistol from its holster, and flicked the safety off.

 

He'd left the bassinet beside the sofa. William lay between Mulder and whoever entered Scully's apartment, but not in the line of fire. Mulder didn't know if a nine-millimeter bullet - or sixteen of them - would stop whatever came through the door, but he didn't have other options.

 

He raised the pistol, crouched beside the bedroom door, and took a breath. He started to move as Maggie Scully's voice called, "Fox?"

 

Mulder stood in the doorway, heart pounding. "Mrs. Scully." He exhaled. "I thought someone was after the baby."

 

"Fox?" she repeated, eyeing the Glock. "Mr. Skinner said you had William, but he wasn't sure where you were. Where you went. You didn't answer your phone, and you weren't at your apartment, so I thought you might be here.  I- I knocked."

 

"I was asleep."

 

He saw Mrs. Scully glance past him, at her daughter's rumpled bed. "Mr. Skinner said Dana's missing."

 

As much as Mulder didn't want to, he nodded. 

 

"He said Dana was undercover, something went wrong, and she's missing. There was an FBI raid in Virginia; I saw it on the news this morning. A UFO cult. People were killed. Was Dana there?"

 

Mulder nodded again, barely moving his head.

 

"Were you there?" she asked.

 

"Yes," he said numbly.

 

She looked at the bassinet, and again at the pistol in Mulder's hand. "I'm not going to hurt the baby, Fox. I'm here to help. Mr. Skinner called me. Put down the gun and tell me what's happened."

 

The few functioning cells in Mulder's brain conferred and agreed on the impoliteness of holding Scully's mother at gunpoint. He lowered the Glock, flicked the safety on, and laid it on the end table. "Sorry."

 

William mewed again. Mulder walked around the sofa, lifted him out of the bassinet, and settled the baby against his chest. "Hey, buddy," he murmured as the world steadied.

 

"Fox, I can take him.  Here," she said, offering her arms. "Here - let me have him."

 

"I have him.  He's okay." William's downy head was warm against Mulder's neck, and a tiny fist gripped his sweatshirt instinctively. "We're okay."

 

"Are you sure?" she asked, hovering protectively.

  

"I'm-" He looked down. Dried mud flaked off his boots and jeans, and the torn sleeve of his sweatshirt revealed the bloody T-shirt and gauze underneath. He hadn't shaved or showered since the previous morning. He hadn't looked in a mirror, but the blisters on his face couldn't be pretty. "A little rough around the edges. We had a long night."

 

"I see." She took a step back, staying within arm's reach. "Where's Dana, Fox?  What's happened to my daughter?"

 

"She was abducted early this morning by a ship like the one that took me," he said, hating the sterile sound of the words coming from his mouth. "I saw it, and I tried to stop it, but I couldn't.  They didn't want William or me, but They took her.  I couldn't stop Them," he repeated. "I'm sorry." 

 

He sat on the sofa and shifted the baby to the crook of his arm.  William wrapped his miniature fingers around Mulder's pinkie, stopped fussing, and watched him, as if fascinated by his face.

 

"Agent John Doggett was injured in the raid," he continued, stroking William's belly with his thumb. "But it looks like he'll pull through. Once he's conscious, hopefully he'll tell us something useful. The same goes for the cult leader. If he lives through surgery, he'll be questioned.  We'll try to track the ship, predict its next pickup point. We can look for patterns in recent abductions. Some abductees are returned unharmed within hours or days. Or, like Scully and I, within a few months-"

 

"And some are returned dead, or never returned at all," she finished for him, her voice faltering.

 

Mulder nodded. He looked at the six-week-old baby in his arms rather than Mrs. Scully. "I wish I could tell you more, but the truth is I don't know. I don't know why They took her or where she is. When or if she'll be returned. All I know is she's gone."

 

She inhaled and straightened, like Scully did as she steeled herself. "All right. Please keep me informed. I'll get William's things: the diaper bag, some bottles." She headed for the kitchen. Mulder rose and followed, carrying the baby. "Clothes, bibs," she continued. "I have a portable crib. Where is the baby seat?"

 

"It's in my car. You're, you're taking him?"

 

"I think it would be easier than staying here."

 

"I can take care of him," Mulder insisted. She opened the dishwasher and started collecting clean bottles. "I promised Scully."

 

"No, no one expects you to.  You look like you haven't slept in days.  I don't know why you didn't call me this morning."

 

She added a pacifier and returned to the living room with Mulder at her heels.

 

"He's fine.  I-I was sleeping, but I woke up when he cried. I hadn't picked him up yet.  I don't ever let him cry."

 

Mrs. Scully stopped packing the diaper bag and glanced at him, seeming puzzled. "It's all right.  Dana asked you to look after him, and you did. I'm sure you did a good job, but she couldn't have meant for you to keep him for weeks. Or months." She paused, and he saw her swallow tensely. "Or forever.  He's not your responsibility."

 

"Yes, he is."

 

"Fox," she started soothingly. "I know you care about Dana.  I know you'd do anything for her, but-"

 

"He is my responsibility."

 

She kept looking at him like they spoke two different languages.

 

"Mrs. Scully, what did Dana tell you...  How did Dana tell you she was able to conceive?"

 

She hesitated. "Through in vitro fertilization.  Using an anonymous donor."

 

He stared at her. A dull knife twisted in his stomach. The knife turned and made its way upward, aiming for his heart. "Did she tell you who Mr. Anonymous was?"

 

"I have some idea, but no, she never did.  I respect her choice. So should you."

 

He chewed his lip and shifted William to one arm. "What if it wasn't in vitro?"

 

"Are you saying someone tampered with her pregnancy? Her baby isn't normal? She said he was fine. Healthy. She said he was a miracle."

 

"He was. He is. Her miracle. And-" He said, "You can't take him."

 

Her gaze moved from Mulder to her daughter's bed, and back to Mulder and her dozing grandson.

 

"I can't deal with this, Fox. I can't. My daughter is missing,” she said angrily. “She could be dead-"

 

"She's not dead," he said quickly. "She's out there. Somewhere."

 

"Then give the baby to me and find her." She looked as if she struggled to hold back tears.

 

A polite knock at the front door interrupted before he could respond.

 

Silently, Mulder handed William to her. He motioned for them to go to the back of the apartment as he picked up his gun. As soon as he saw the trio of faces on the other side of the peephole, though, Mulder lowered the Glock and gestured for Mrs. Scully to return.

 

"Something's wrong with your cellular phone," Byers informed him as Mulder opened the door. "It isn't working. If it was damaged as the UFO passed overhead, I'd like to examine it." He put down his briefcase and unrolled a large map across Scully's coffee table, preparing for battle.

 

Langly followed. He carried a backpack and an open laptop computer, typing with one hand. "I'm gonna need a DSL connection," he said in greeting.

 

Frohike was last, zipped into a furry vest and bearing a giant cup of soda and two bags of take-out containers.

 

"Hey, boys," Mulder said tiredly. "Come on in.  Have you met Mrs. Scully?" he asked.

 

Byers responded, "We met at your funeral. It's good to see you again, Mrs. Scully.  I'm so sorry about Dana. We're going to do everything we can to find her."

 

"Thank you, Mr. Byers," she said politely. "Ringo, Melvin," she added. “I’m sure you will.”

 

Niceties over, The Gunmen hijacked Scully's computer and Internet connection, propped a US map open on the coffee table with two cartons of sweet & sour chicken, and made themselves at home.  Frohike manned Scully's computer. Langly patched his laptop into a few gadgets Mulder didn't recognize and resumed his staccato, two-fingered typing.

 

"Why are they here?  What are they doing?" Mrs. Scully whispered to Mulder, holding William against her shoulder.

 

"It's not a good idea to ask, but it gets results."

  

"Mulder, you're gonna wanna see this," Frohike said as blurry satellite photo appeared the monitor.

 

"Is that her?" Mrs. Scully asked, quickly going to the computer. "Dana? Is this the, the ship that took her? Where is it?" 

 

Frohike shifted uncomfortably. "This is the ship’s location at five-twenty this morning, during Dana’s abduction. We're not sure where it is now."

 

Mrs. Scully nodded as she patted the baby’s back.

 

"We're looking," Frohike added, trying to sound encouraging.

 

"If anyone can find her, they can," Mulder promised, but she didn't look comforted.

 

She watched for a bit before wrapping a blanket around William and picking up the diaper bag. She moved with the same efficiency Scully had when she avoided thinking about something terrible. "Come see him anytime," she said softly, for Mulder's ears alone. "You'll be welcome."

 

"I can take care of him."

 

"You can't take care of him and find my daughter at the same time."

 

Mulder looked down, studying his dirty boots.  He had an hourglass inside him, and the last grains of sand slowly slipped away, leaving him empty. "Mrs. Scully-"

 

"Find Dana," she repeated softly. "The two of you can work this out."

 

Five minutes later, he watched from the living room window as Mrs. Scully buckled William into the backseat of her Honda.

 

Any minute, Scully.

 

"She'll take good care of him," Frohike said from behind Mulder.

 

"Yeah. Good call, dude," Langly offered. "You can't save the world while wearing a Snugli."

 

Mulder turned. A dull headache built behind his eyes. Whether he'd make the mature, best-for-the-baby decision or not, he couldn't help feeling like a war had been averted, but he'd gotten screwed in the peace talks.

 

"What?" Mulder said tersely. "What the hell does that mean?"

 

"I dunno. I read it on-line somewhere," Langly added, looking awkward. "What? What'd I say?"

 

"Shut up and hack, Michael Bolton," Frohike suggested.

 

****

 

Scully was gone. Again. The X-files were gone. Again. William was with Grandma for an unspecified period, pending his mother's return or DNA testing and a custody hearing. Mulder was alone, unemployed, undead, far too tired to sleep, and the gash in his arm hurt like hell. Some days seemed sponsored by the letters F and U. Murphy's law crossed paths with the cosmic G-spot, and it felt like the entire universe came crashing down on him.

 

And some things made it bearable.  Not good, but bearable enough to keep Mulder in motion, and keep the barrel of his gun pointed somewhere besides at the roof of his mouth.  Instant cappuccino from an all-night convenience store, bought to wash down a double dose of Advil.  Finding a pair of earrings and an Eagles CD Scully stowed in the center console of the car a few mornings ago, but never retrieved. Hitting every green light between Georgetown and Baltimore. Seeing Scully's son turn his head toward Mulder's voice. The baby reached up, splaying tiny fingers as he woke to find Mulder leaning over his crib.

 

"Hey, buddy," Mulder whispered. "How are you doing? Is Grandma taking good care of you?"

 

He leaned closer, and sleepy blue eyes the exact color of Scully's focused on his face. Mulder smiled, the baby smiled back with her mouth, and Mulder's arm and heart ached less.

 

"I brought Snuffy." Mulder made the stuffed animal waddle along the edge of the crib, and down to sniff the baby's toes with his fabric snout. "Did you miss Snuffy? I'm real. Yes, I am," he narrated for the morose stuffed animal. "I'm not an unhealthy, depressed projection of Big Bird's psyche. Mommy's a big, skeptical, stick in the mud, isn't she?"

 

William gurgled and flailed his arms like a delighted seal.

 

"Oh, you like him?" Mulder tucked the stuffed animal under his arm long enough to pick up the baby. "Mommy put up Pooh wallpaper, like Pooh Corner is some hotbed of mental health," he continued in his sad Snuffy voice. He made the stuffed animal mope across William's belly. "But Mulder buys one Mr. Snuffy and she-"

 

A gun cocked behind him.

 

Mulder froze, cradling William in the crook of his arm.

 

"Put him down.  Put him down and get away from him," Mrs. Scully ordered. "Who are you?  What are you doing here?"

 

"It's me. Mulder. Fox Mulder. You said anytime. I could come by anytime."

 

He heard her exhale. "Fox, you scared me half to death. I thought someone was after the baby.  How did you get in?"

 

Mulder turned. Mrs. Scully wore a long nightgown and held a pistol in her hand.  He had no doubt she knew how to use it. Like mother, like daughter.  He wasn't sure she wouldn't shoot him for the hell of it.

 

"I picked the lock. It's late; I didn't want to wake you by knocking. I was, uh, bringing William his Snuffaluffagus."

 

Her living room was dim, but he thought she rolled her eyes as she lowered the gun.  She disappeared into the back of the house for a few minutes, and returned wearing a bathrobe. As Mulder settled the baby against his shoulder and sat on the sofa, Mrs. Scully sat in an armchair opposite him. She rubbed her hands over her terrycloth lap, appearing uncomfortable.

 

"There's no news of Dana," he said before she asked. "In a few hours, she'll be listed as a missing person, but otherwise, there's no news."

 

"What about the ship?  The one that took her?"

 

"After five-twenty this morning, there's no sign of it.  The Gunmen have done everything short of taking over the Hubble Telescope; the ship isn't on any military satellite, not at any known pick-up point, and there were no other reported abductions in the last twenty-four hours. They're looking, though."

 

She looked down and adjusted a slipcover on the arm of the chair. 

 

"Ophiuchus - the cult leader - died on the operating table this afternoon before he could be questioned," Mulder continued. "The FBI's questioning of the rest of the cult members has been less-than-profitable, and they'll be released soon.  Agent Doggett is stable. The doctors are hoping he'll be conscious tomorrow."

 

He stopped, having run out of disheartening news and nervous energy.

 

"The head of the Hostage Rescue Team is adamant what his men saw in the sky wasn't a UFO," he continued, as William began to doze. "He's saying one helicopter crashed into the other.  He's saying people died because of my incorrect assessment of the situation. If the FBI had taken more time to prepare and had negotiated with Ophiuchus..."

 

He dropped his head against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. He felt William's warm cheek safe against the base of his neck. "There's no consortium left," he said. "All the original members are dead or dying.  And the cloning and hybrid experiments - those died with them."

 

"I don't understand."

 

"Those were men. Men performed experiments on Scully, on me, on the others: tagging them, taking them, using them as guinea pigs.  Now, there are no more men," he explained. "I can find men; I can stop men. I can't stop the universe-at-large. I can't fight Armageddon with a plastic bow and arrow. I can't find Scully if I don't even know where to look."

 

She didn't respond, and he didn't open his eyes. 

 

A grandfather clock chimed, marking four a.m.

 

"Is he asleep?" she asked, and the armchair shifted as she stood. "Do you want me to put him down?"

 

"I will in a minute," Mulder mumbled, half asleep himself. "I hafta go in a minute..." He felt hands gently guiding him down onto the throw pillows at one end of the sofa. A baby blanket covered William, and, after a moment, the weight of another lay across Mulder's legs. "I hafta go in a minute..." he repeated. "I was bringing William his Snuffy. Can't expect him to sleep without his Snuffy."

 

"All right," she agreed softly, her voice barely breeching the edges of his consciousness.

 

****

 

Immense was too small a word for the desert sky, and infinite was an understatement. Above Mulder, the black canopy stretched across the heavens, sprinkled with fairy dust and bisected by the silver river of the Milky Way. A small fire crackled, warming one side of his face, and the wind whistled against the mountains. Otherwise, the night was still.

 

Scully sat nearby, wearing a long nightshirt and holding her hands up to a campfire.  She smiled as Mulder woke – an honest, relaxed, hint of smile.

 

"There you are," she said, like he'd kept her waiting for eons and she'd started to worry.

 

As he pushed the edge of the oversize sleeping bag down and rolled onto his side, the skin on his bare shoulders prickled in the cool air. "I was hoping you'd be here," Mulder said softly. 

 

She fed a few sticks to the fire, rose, and casually walked toward him. The breeze blew her hair across her face and her nightshirt against her body, outlining one hip and breast in blue cotton.

 

"Where else did you expect me to be?"

 

"I- I don't know.  Are you all right?"

 

"A little cold.  A little lonely.  Do you have room for two in there?" 

 

He stared at her for a nanosecond while her words computed in his brain. He folded the top of the sleeping bag farther down, scooted back, and patted the warm space his body had left. She slid in, pausing to pull her nightshirt off before she lay down and zipped up, cocooning them in a safe world of flannel lining and goose down fill.

 

Her head felt warm and heavy against his shoulder, as did her arm on his chest and her smooth leg across his.  She surrounded him, smelling of Ivory soap and heavy-duty sunscreen and a hint of mesquite smoke. The campfire reflected against her fair skin, making it glow the color of moonbeams and old pearls.

 

She wasn't real. The desert, the campfire, the sleeping bag built for two: none of it was real.  As he'd come to her during his abduction, seeking refuge in her dreams, she came to him. She'd created this place in her mind: a fantasy, a memory, or a page from an L.L. Bean catalog. It was a psychic link, astral projection, hypnagogia, lucid dreaming, mutual dreaming; his soul found hers for a few moments. If he woke, the link would break.

 

He spent several minutes trying not to wake.

 

He stroked her hair, and ran his fingers through it, working out the tangles.  Her hand caressed his shoulder, rose and fell over his chest, and tracked the line of dark hair down his stomach.

 

"Are you all right?  Are They hurting you?" he whispered, afraid to hear the answer.

 

"I'm with you.  They can't hurt me here."  

 

"Where are you?" he tried asking. "Tell me where you are."

 

"With you.  I need to be with you," she answered. "It's nice here.  I can't- I can't be there," she added, her voice tightening as the soap bubble universe began to quiver, threatening to pop.

 

"Okay. It's okay. I'll find you," he promised. "It's gonna be all right. Don't think about being there. Stay here with me."

 

She nodded silently, her hair sliding against his shoulder like raw silk.    

 

He swallowed, exhaled, and looked up at the cloudless sky for a long time.  It went on forever, stretching back to the beginning of time. So many stars: old souls, traveling through space, searching for new homes. Kindred spirits trying to find each other. Samantha was there.  His parents.  Scully's sister and father. If one of those pinpricks of light was the ship that took Scully, she waited out there, too.

 

"How many did you say are out there?" he asked. "Four hundred billion stars?"

 

"Between two and five hundred billion in the Milky Way," she corrected, sounding like Scully again. "In the visible universe, there are about five billion trillion stars."

 

He caressed her shoulder. "Tell me about one of them."

  

She shifted, rolled away and folded one arm behind her head. "You see Betelgeuse?" she asked, pointing vaguely at the vast sky.

 

"The movie ‘Beetlejuice?'"

 

Her sigh indicated an incorrect answer.

 

"It's in Orion. His right shoulder is a star called Betelgeuse. Find Aldebaran above Orion's bow; it's eye of the bull in Taurus. Orion's aiming his bow at Taurus. See it?"

 

Mulder nodded as he scanned the sky. So far, he'd located Orion's Belt and the Big Dipper. Maybe.

 

"You're looking too high. Above Orion's head," she instructed. "Those are the bull's horns.  Aldebaran is the eye of the bull and those two stars are the tips of his horns. Look below the right horn. Have you found it?"

 

"I'm trying." Five billion trillion stars and she wanted him to find one speck above some bull's right horn. "What am I seeing?"

 

"Now, to the naked eye, nothing-"

   

"Possibly explaining why I don't see it."

 

"-but in 1054 AD, Chinese astronomers recorded an extra star appearing in Taurus, above the bull's right horn," she continued. "The Anasazi Indians saw it, too. It grew brighter than Venus, and so bright it was visible during the day for a month. They watched the new star for 653 nights until it vanished."

 

"A UFO?" he guessed.

 

"A star going supernova. All that remains is the Crab Nebula, which we'd need a telescope to see, but a thousand years ago, the empty space you are looking at was a giant, dying star."

 

"Do they count it?"

 

She turned her head to look at him. "Do who count what?"

 

"In the five billion trillion stars. Is the supernova included, or is it five billion trillion stars, minus one?"

 

She propped her head on her elbow and studied him uncertainly. "Five billion trillion is a current estimate, Mulder."

 

"Right." He nodded. "There's nothing about Michael Keaton or the real ‘Beetlejuice’ in this story, is there?" he asked, managing to keep a straight face. "Because he was great in that movie."

 

"The star in Orion is the real Betelgeuse. It's a red giant formed during the birth of our universe. It predates Michael Keaton's acting career by about fifteen billion years."

 

"Right," he said again, as his deadpan facade began to fail. "And they're sure it was a supernova?  Not a UFO?"

 

"Yes, they're sure," she said, starting to sound like she regretted starting the story. "The Crab Nebula is the remnants of the star that went supernova in 1054 AD.  It's Messier object number one.  M1. It's been studied for-"

 

"The Anasazi Indians, the Incans: many ancient cultures reported contact with beings from the sky. There are theories extra-terrestrials built the Egyptian pyramids. The Inca-" Her frustrated expression got the better of him and he started laughing.

 

She glared at him, her forehead wrinkling. A second later she flopped down on her back and announced they were no longer on speaking terms.

 

"Right. No more talking." He pressed his lips to the hollow of her neck, preparing to work his way down.

 

"...the real Betelgeuse," she mumbled under her breath, but relaxed.

 

"I'm the ghost with the most, babe," he quoted, and resumed his appreciation of her left breast.

 

A coyote howled in the distance, adding its voice to the night. Cereus, primrose, and desert lilies scented the breeze, and the campfire popped softly as the mesquite wood burned.

 

She hummed appreciatively as he blew across her wet nipple. It hardened in response.  He moved to the right breast, sucking gently as he slid his hand down her flat belly and between her legs, to the warm nest of hair. Making love to her had been the easy part. The minor things - the morning after, the rest of their lives, the aliens, the on-going government conspiracy, and the end of the world - tripped them up.  If they could do a John and Yoko, and save the world from bed, they'd be fine.

 

"Ithildin," he whispered, pausing to watch the way her wet skin shimmered in the firelight. "That's what you are."

 

"Ithildin?"

 

"In ‘Lord of the Rings,’ the Gates of Moria are made of ithildin. It's a substance visible by moonlight and starlight, and if touched by one who speaks the secret words."

 

She reached up to stroke his jaw. "I don't think it’s on the periodic table."

 

"Ithildin. By moonlight, I see you perfectly. I know you. I know me. I know us. But by day..."

 

She rolled so they were face-to-face, with her head on his outstretched arm and her top leg over his hip. "Do you need the secret words?"

 

He cupped her cheek with his hand, his lips poised over hers. "I wish I knew them. Those are long forgotten in Middle-Earth," he whispered before he kissed her.

 

****

 

He heard a thump as a newspaper landed on the porch. Later, the gas burner whooshed off as a teakettle prepared to whistle.  A baby fussed, feet in soft-soled slippers moved across a hard floor, and a telephone got off half a ring before someone picked it up, answering with a hesitant "hello?" 

 

Mulder listened to the woman's muffled voice talk to the caller while he waited to see if consciousness would go away.  It didn't.  Somewhere in the real world, morning arrived again, and, likely, people would expect him to play along like he belonged among the living.

 

He looked around the dim room as he tried to figure out where he was. An unfamiliar sofa creaked as he sat up, moaning unhappily. "Shit," he mumbled under his breath.

 

"You're awake," Mrs. Scully's voice said as a portable phone beeped off. "I was trying to keep William quiet, but the telephone rang.  I'm sorry."

 

He saw a small female form in a robe silhouetted in the living room doorway, backlit by the soft light from the kitchen.  She held a baby, and he stared at her for a second, half-awake, wanting her to be someone she wasn't.

 

Mrs. Scully's house.  Baltimore.  Mr. Snuffy.  The baby.  Late night breaking and entering.  Getting the traditional greeting of the Mulder-Scully clan. A loaded 9mm - for when you care enough to brandish the very best.

 

"Oh, God.  Did I fall asleep?" Mulder tilted his stiff neck and started to roll his left shoulder before he decided against it.  He licked his cracked lips and said, "What time it is?"

 

"After six. I don't think you fell asleep so much as you collapsed. Do you want coffee? Or tea?"

 

She'd taken the baby from him. Mulder was holding the baby, but she must have taken William the second he fell asleep. He must have let her.

 

"No.  No, I should- I hafta to go."

 

"Mr. Skinner called. He wanted to tell me Agent Doggett is awake, but there's no news about Dana. He asked if I'd seen you, but I didn't know whether to tell him you were here or not.  I wasn't sure- I wasn't sure of the circumstances," she said judiciously. "So I told him I didn't know."

 

"Skinner's at the hospital?" Mulder asked, standing up. "With Doggett?"

 

She nodded. "I think so. Fox-"

 

"I have to go.  I didn't mean to- To inconvenience you.  I-"

 

Mulder ran his fingers through his hair. He still wore his boots and jacket, so except for a case of bedhead, he was as presentable as he'd been upon arrival.

 

He noticed his reflection in the mirror over the sofa, and paused to watch the hollow-eyed, scruffy looking stranger who stared back.  Small blisters ran down the right side of his face, but the sleepy eyes, the funny nose, the too full lower lip and the too angular jaw - it was all the same.  It looked like him, but it wasn't.  The reflection was like the exoskeleton left behind after an insect molted, a form with nothing inside.

 

In Scully's fantasies, though, he still laughed.  He still remembered how.

 

"Fox?"

 

"Yes?" he answered in his distant, 'yes, I'd like cream and sugar, please' voice.

 

"If Mr. Skinner calls again, what should I tell him?" Mrs. Scully asked. She tilted William's bottle as the baby drained it.

 

"Tell him I'm on my way to the hospital," Mulder responded tersely. He zipped his jacket and fished the car keys out of his pocket. "And Agent Doggett better have some answers by the time I get there."

 

He waited, hoping for some clue she agreed, she thought he did the right thing. Mrs. Scull looked tired, like she'd witnessed this drama one too many times.

 

Mulder stroked William's cheek with his thumb and promised he'd call later.

 

A fine layer of snow covered his car and dusted the neighborhood silvery-white.  A cold sliver of moon waxed as night held fast against the dawn. Betelgeuse had set, but Vega was there. Ophiuchus. The Big Dipper, pointing to Polaris. The North Star. Find it, and Scully assured him even he could find his way home again. 

 

Mulder opened the front door but stopped, letting the cold air in. "She's alive," he assured Mrs. Scully. "I can't explain how I know, but I do."

 

"There's a spare key under the white flowerpot on the porch," she responded.

 

****

 

Mulder's impression of Agent Doggett had started with "Agent Who?" and spiraled downward from there. 

 

I've had a partner, Mulder.  He's above reproach, Mulder. Agent Doggett is being maneuvered.  I feel like I'm deserting Agent Doggett to ensure the health and safety of my unborn baby, Mulder. I have to do three-hour autopsies at thirty-nine weeks pregnant to help find Agent Doggett. Because Agent Doggett is my partner, Mulder. There's no one else to go undercover with Agent Doggett, Mulder.

 

Agent Doggett didn't have to do anything; Mulder hated the man, sight unseen, on principle. Valid concern for Scully's safety and professional territoriality; insecurity and misdirected rage - po-tay-toe, pa-tah-toe.

 

Two agents guarded the hospital room, and two more stood at the nurses' station.  Another was posted at the entrance to the stairs, and one at the elevator.  Skinner paced the hall, forehead creased, hands on his hips, doing his unhappy dance.  He glanced up as Mulder approached. He raised his hands, ordering Mulder to cool his heels.

 

"Is he awake?  Is he?  I want to talk to him," Mulder demanded loudly, stalking toward him.

 

Skinner moved sideways, blocking access to Doggett's room. "Where the hell have you been?  I've been trying to call you since yesterday. You took the baby and disappeared, Mulder. Vanished. No one knew where you were. Not me. Not Scully's mother-"

 

"I want to talk to the son-of-a-bitch." He pointed at the hospital bed.

 

The agents on guard edged closer, hands on their weapons.

 

"Not like this," Skinner said sternly. "Calm down, Mulder. Don't make us take you down."

 

Mulder considered trying to wrestle the Assistant Director out of the way but decided against it.  He'd had a long, slippery drive from Baltimore to work up a full head of steam, and no plan for what to do with it. Killing Doggett wouldn't bring Scully back.

 

Hurting him might make Mulder feel better, though.

 

Through the doorway, he saw Agent Reyes sitting beside the hospital bed, holding Doggett's hand as he slept.  Monitors beeped and IV lines dripped, and she stroked his face, whispering comforting words Mulder couldn't hear.

 

"I want to talk to him," Mulder repeated more calmly. "I want some answers."

 

"I have answers. Some of them, at least.  Sit." Skinner gestured to a pair of chairs across the hall. "Have a seat," he reiterated sternly.

 

Mulder sat, sighing tiredly. He rested his elbows on his knees and focused on the doorway. "All right."

 

"Agent Doggett said Ophiuchus didn't shoot him."

 

Mulder turned his head, looking at Skinner's profile. "Who did?"

 

"He claims it was a member of the Hostage Rescue Team.  He's not sure which one, though." Skinner reached in his coat pocket and produced an evidence bag containing a mangled bullet. "It's not the caliber Ophiuchus was using, and he was the one cult member firing."

 

"What's the HRT saying?  An accident?  A ricochet?"

 

"The Hostage Rescue Team isn't saying much of anything." After a moment, Skinner folded the plastic bag containing the slug and dropped it in his pocket. "Doggett said he never requested Agent Scully undercover," he continued. "He never even mentioned having a wife."

 

"How did she get there?"

 

"Kersh. I'd read the file and been briefed on the investigation, but Kersh made the decision to send her in. He was running the show. It looked legitimate, Mulder. I swear it did. Safe. In and out. One afternoon."

 

"Why Scully? Of all the female agents in the Bureau, why did it have to be her? Didn't it seem suspicious?"

 

Skinner worried his lower lip and leaned forward, mimicking Mulder's posture. "In the reports I received, Agent Doggett, in discussing his wife with Ophiuchus, described Agent Scully: her hair color, her build, her medical background..."

 

Mulder's mouth moved but no words found their way out.

 

"She was his partner. You were gone a long time, Mulder. She was alone, pregnant, frightened, grieving. Between you and me, she's a beautiful woman. John Doggett is a good agent, but he isn't made of stone. He'd lost a child, and she was about to have one. Working with her, day after day... Yes, I thought it was possible he developed feelings for his partner. And in creating an undercover persona, talking off-the-cuff, his imagination got the better of him. I thought it unwise and unprofessional, and I planned to rip him a new one, but I didn't question the report at the time.

 

Mulder sat back. He crossed his arms and clenched his molars until his jaw ached.

 

"Obviously, the report was false," Skinner added tiredly. "A ruse to get her undercover."

 

In the hospital room across the hall, Agent Reyes continued holding Doggett's hand and stroking his face, soothing away the hurt.

 

Scully had done that so many times. The darkness receded, the fog of unconsciousness lifted, and Mulder woke to her hand in his. It would be over. He'd open his eyes and she'd be there, smiling sadly and welcoming him back.

 

Watching them, Mulder felt the dull ache spread from his jaw to the rest of his body. It felt like being drawn and quartered in slow motion.

 

Mulder closed his eyes and rubbed his eyelids until he saw stars. "It was a set-up from the beginning," he mumbled. "I'm out of the Bureau. Abduct Scully, kill Doggett, make Agent Reyes look incompetent, and the X-files are closed for good. Kersh gets what he wants."

 

"You're forgetting someone."

 

Mulder looked up. "Who?"

 

"I have to explain myself to the Office of Professional Conduct next week," Skinner responded. He took off his glasses and rubbed them with his handkerchief. "And, probably, to a Senate review panel."

 

"That pretty much covers all the bases."

 

"Pretty much," Skinner agreed, still polishing the spotless lenses of his glasses.

 

"Why abduct Scully?" Mulder asked. "If They wanted rid of her, why not shoot her?"

 

"I think Kersh's plan was to get her undercover - knowing the situation was unstable - and, in the confusion of the raid, shoot her and Agent Doggett and blame it on Ophiuchus. Someone or something else interfered."

 

"Why?" Mulder asked.

 

"That's the question. And what I'm hoping you can tell me."

 

****

 

As a kid, Mulder gravitated toward telescopes, Hardy Boys books, and plastic phasers, but he had his share of toy cars.  He remembered one kind in particular: wind its metal insides up with a little key, holding the rear wheels still, set it down, and let it race pell-mell across the kitchen floor. Under-wind it and it stopped after half a foot; over-wind it, though, and its insides jam permanently and it couldn't go anywhere.

 

As he sorted through the Gunmen's endless files, a metal coil twisted dangerously tighter and tighter inside him. All wound up with no place to go and no clue how to get there.

 

Byers conked out at about two. He slept with his arms arranged neatly on his desk and his head on his hands, like a first grader at quiet time.  Langly was still at it, his mouse clicking as he worked his way through the UFO newsgroups, searching for any tidbit of useful information.

 

Files, photos, and old soda cups littered the long table in the center of the Gunmen's lair. Frohike had to clear a place to prop his elbow.  He scratched the stubble on his chin before asking hopefully, "Mulder?  You wanna make a run for the border, man?  Get some air?"

 

Mulder shook his head without looking up.  He set one stack of papers aside and picked up another, rubbing his eyes before he tried to focus on the miniscule type.  The clock on the wall read three-thirty a.m. Scully had been gone forty-eight hours.

 

He knew the statistics - for terrestrial abductions, anyway. Twenty-four hours after a kidnapping, with no contact with the kidnappers, the chances of a hostage being found or returned alive started dropping; after forty-eight hours, the chances fell to non-existent. When Scully was taken to Antarctica, he'd reached her with the vaccine in less than forty-eight hours.  After his abduction, she said the ship lingered in the Arizona desert, but only for a few days.

 

The clock ticked, and the metal coil inside him wound tighter.

 

"No one's going to deliver this time of night, but I could stick a frozen pizza in the oven," Frohike offered. "We have pepperoni."

 

"I could do pizza," Langly responded, and yawned.

 

"Did you check the flight schedules to and from Antarctica?  And New Zealand?"

 

"Not in the last hour," Langly said grudgingly.

 

"Check them," Mulder ordered. "Check the satellite photos for any plane not filing a flight plan. Check the payloads for anything sounding odd, any equipment potentially transporting Scully.  Check the geothermic scans. If the ship takes Scully to Antarctica, it'll show up on the scans as it lands on the ice." 

 

"Dude, we've been at this since noon. I need to be caffeinated."

 

"William needs his mother." He added raggedly, "I need Scully. Keep looking."

 

Cowed, Langly frowned, adjusted his glasses and went back to his fruitless hunting and pecking.

 

"Where are the data from the European Remote Sensing Satellite?" Mulder asked. He put the papers aside and looked through the manila folders.

 

NASA, DOD, ERS-2, CIA, FBI, NORAD, SETI - if it had an acronym and government funding, The Gunmen had a file on it.

 

MUFON.  CUFON.  CUFOS.  NICAP.  NARCAP.  UFOCAT. 

 

Projects Sign, Grudge, Twinkle, Blue Book.  MJ-12. 

 

Men in Black.  The Philadelphia Experiment.  The Manhattan Project.  Crop circles.  Cloning.  Black helicopters.  731. Paperclip.

 

Roswell.  Tunguska.

 

Abductions.  Abductees.  Rousch Pharmaceuticals.  Zeus Genetics.  The Litchfield Experiment.

 

Super-soldiers.  Black oil.

 

Bees.

 

Mulder felt like someone spread the last decade of his life across the table and said, "Here are your answers, hotshot. Find the truth."

 

The clock on the wall ticked loudly.

 

The truth: Scully was gone, and he didn't even know why or where to start searching for her, let alone how to get her back.

 

"Frohike," he repeated. "The ERS-2 data?"

 

"There weren't any transmission errors.  Byers checked."

 

Mulder glanced up. His eyes stung and his head protested the lack of sleep. "Let me look."

 

"He checked them," Frohike objected as Mulder rummaged through another stack of files.

 

"Let me look.  Which folder is it?"

 

"There are no errors.  What are you looking for?"

 

"I'm looking for Scully, damn it!" He slammed the files down. "I'm looking for a ship."

 

"It isn't on there.  She isn't on there," Frohike snapped back. "The ship's gone.  She's gone."

 

Mulder opened his mouth to yell back, but closed it and pressed his forehead hard against his palms, trying not to go crazy.

 

"There's nothing out there," Frohike said. "No ship. Not in the desert. Not in Oregon.  Or Skyland Mountain.  Or Antarctica." His voice softened. "She's gone, like you were gone."

 

"What am I supposed to do?" he asked, his voice cracking. "Wait? Wait to find a body? Go out and scream at the sky? I can't do nothing."

 

Langly stopped his two-fingered typing, and Frohike cleared his throat uncomfortably.  Byers raised his head and looked around sleepily as if trying to determine the source of the commotion.

 

"I can't do nothing," Mulder repeated emptily.

 

Frohike exhaled. "Go see your son," he suggested.

 

****

 

"To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead."

 

The line came from a book he'd read somewhere, but Mulder was too tired to recall the author or even the context of the quote.

 

Three parts dead, leaving one part alive and accountable.

 

Mulder sat on the rug in front of Mrs. Scully's floral sofa, his legs bent, with William on his thighs. In the darkness, William slept soundly. His lips moved as he nursed in his dreams.

 

Mulder wondered how different it would have been if he hadn't been abducted.  If he'd been with Scully from the day she found out about the baby, if he'd gone to the doctor's visits and seen the ultrasounds, if he had more than a few weeks to acquaint himself with the idea of her being pregnant. He could have drafted off her sense of wonder and certainty instead of feeling an auger boring its way through his gut each time he'd looked at her belly.

 

She never had any doubts her baby was normal and she could take care of it.

 

He'd had nothing but doubts.

 

Mulder wondered how he'd answer, on a random afternoon in the future, when William asked the circumstances of his birth. ‘I wanted you for your mother’ wasn't going to cut it. ‘I love you because you are part of her.’ ‘I took care of you because I promised Scully I would.’

 

He had a sense of protectiveness and duty. He felt a kind of love, a gentle connection and warmth inside his chest as William looked at him. He wanted the fierce, instinctive bond Scully had with her son, but it wouldn’t come. Ferocity required energy and direction and certainty, qualities Mulder left on a spaceship in the Arizona desert. Or among the dead. At best, his affection for the baby succumbed to gravity and leaked out.

 

Mulder sat, resting the baby against his knees, and stroked one tiny flannel foot as William slept.

 

Three parts dead.

 

The author of the quote was Bertrand Russell, and Mulder remembered perusing the book as an undergrad. "Marriage and Morals," published in 1929. Russell scandalized society by criticizing the sexuality morality of the day.  Russell questioned the need to establish a child's paternity, saying it benefited the father's ego, not the child's well-being. Even in the roaring twenties, Russell raised eyebrows by viewing marriage as optional and something to be considered after a couple had a child. Seventy years later, Dr. Dana Scully agreed - at least in regard to Mulder - and Mr. Anonymous went along.

 

Having an excellent memory sucked. He would have settled for remembering the quote.

 

"Fox?" Maggie's voice whispered, as the sound of her slippers padded down the hall toward him. "Is that you?"

 

"Yeah," he answered. He cleared his throat. "Yes. I was watching him.  He's asleep."

 

She stopped a few feet away, tying the sash of her bathrobe, and pushed her disheveled hair back. "You can come visit during the day."

 

"I know.  I was in the neighborhood."

 

"Do you need anything?"

 

"No," he answered softly. "I wanted to see him.  He's so peaceful."

 

She nodded. "Do you want a blanket?"

 

"There's one in the crib."

 

"For you. If you're going to spend another night on the sofa, you'll need a blanket."

 

He continued stroking the sole of William's foot. "I'm going in a minute.  I wanted to see him.  Make sure he's okay. Safe. Not colicky or cold or anything..." he said, trailing off.

 

As if Mulder hadn’t spoken, she said, "I'll get a blanket."

 

He didn't have the energy to argue.  Mrs. Scully disappeared down the dark hallway and returned carrying two blankets and a pillow, which she put on the arm of the sofa. "There are more in the linen closet, if you need them."

 

"Thank you," he mumbled.

 

He looked up. She seemed uncomfortable, as if she didn't know if she should stay or go.

 

"Don't put your dirty boots on my sofa again," she said, sounding maternal. "Take them off."

 

"I will," he promised. "Yes, Ma'am."

 

She hesitated again. "You can't sleep with William on your chest. Not on the sofa. It isn't safe. He could get wedged between you and the cushions and smother. Or, if you let go of him while you're asleep, he could fall."

 

"Oh. Okay." He'd skimmed “What to Expect When You're Expecting” but otherwise, in taking care of William, done what Scully told him.

 

Scully hadn't told him what to do if she never came home again.

 

"Goodnight," Maggie said awkwardly. She turned and her footsteps faded down the hallway.

 

Mulder dragged a blanket off the sofa, unfolded it on the floor, and arranged himself and the baby on it.  He put one hand under his head as a pillow, and one on the baby as a frail shield against all the evil in the universe. Exhaling, he closed his eyes.

 

****

 

She was twenty-eight years old the first time she intruded into his fortress of paranoid solitude - five-foot nothing of red hair, blue eyes, and skepticism, ready to right the world in her frumpy suits and fuck-me shoes.

 

Mulder had loved the juxtaposition from day one. 

 

Dana Scully was an elegant contradiction, a conformist with a rebellious streak beneath her cool surface. She was brilliant, dependable, and more predictable than she liked to believe.  He knew her to be fiercely loyal, bull-headedly obstinate, and as dangerous as she looked at first glance. Skinner was right; she was beautiful. Quietly, hazardously, fatally so.

 

The little black dress she wore needed a warning label: slow, dangerous curves ahead.  It fit a woman, not a teenage girl, sensuous without being slutty and elegant without a hint of stuffiness. The front was held up by two thin straps, and fell into a long silk sheath baring her back and caressing her breasts and hips. She had her hair pulled high in a magical 'do women did, as if picked up and set atop her crown, defying gravity except for a few curls.

 

In his dream Mulder paused, watching her, trying to memorize every detail. The hollow where her neck sloped into her shoulder and the tilt of her head as she was deep in thought.  The way she moved, spoke, laughed. The gestures, the nuances, the fluid beauty of her.

 

She smiled invitingly from the doorway. He smoothed his tuxedo jacket and stepped into the empty ballroom. Candelabras lined the walls, and an unseen band played something slow and smoky. The tall windows were open; the breath of a new spring evening made the gauzy curtains flutter and brought the scent of a hidden rose garden. In the center of the room stood Scully, alone, lovely, and waiting patiently for him in the surreal borderland between his consciousness and hers.

 

"Just us?" he asked, stopping in front of her.

 

"Just us," she promised. She licked her crimson lips as she put her arms around his neck.

 

"I'm searching for you," he couldn't help saying.

 

She closed her eyes as he kissed her.  Her skin and hair smelled faintly of an exotic perfume, and her mouth tasted like champagne.  It opened, inviting him in.

 

Mulder tried to relax his mind, to let the dream sweep over him and become reality for a bit.  He needed it as much as she did - this fantasy universe she created for them.

 

"I'm not having much success," he admitted after their lips parted, with her arms still around him.  He stroked her bare shoulder blade and hesitated before he said, "Scully, I need you to tell me where you are."

 

"I'm here," she whispered into his ear. "Right here. Dance with me, Mulder."

 

She stepped backward as if expecting him to lead, but his feet stayed rooted to the polished floor.

 

"I will. I will, but you have to talk to me first. I need to know where you are, Scully.  I need to know what They're doing to you."

 

"I don't know."

 

"You have to know," he insisted. "You're an FBI agent; you have to be able to tell me something. Where are you?  What do you see? Hear? How long did it take you to get there?  Try, Scully. Please try. I need you. William needs you." 

 

She let go of his hand and stepped away, regarding him sadly. Mulder reached out, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her back before she could get away.

 

This was maddening, and it made him insane.  Every knock at the door and every ring of the phone was Scully; every petite woman on the sidewalk and every redhead in front of him at a stoplight was Scully. In a crowd, his gaze moved from face to face, searching for hers.  Her presence haunted his every waking moment. If he closed his eyes, Mulder found her - in his arms, but still out of reach.

 

"Tell me what to do, Scully," he pleaded. "If you can't tell me how to help you, tell me what to do with William until I find you. William: your son," he repeated. She looked at him blankly. "You have a son. We had a baby. You went off and left him, and never told me what to do.  I don't know what to do with him, Scully," he said, one word tripping over the next. "I don't know what you expect. I don't know what I am to you. Or to him."

 

His hand shook as it clutched her wrist, and his forehead wrinkled painfully. 

 

"You're his father. Take care of him," she said softly. "Keep him safe. Love him."

 

"I'm trying," he answered hoarsely. "It's so hard.  I'm afraid-"

 

"You can do this." She stroked his cheek, trying to comfort him. "I know you can. I have faith in you. I love you." She moved closer and asked again, "Dance with me, Mulder."

 

He nodded and willed his feet to move. The band played softly and the candles flickered. They danced, moving in a stationary circle in the middle of the dim ballroom, his arms around her for as long as the song and the dream lasted.

 

****

 

The media painted Mulder as the scapegoat - the rogue ex-profiler, the reckless former FBI agent who chased space aliens - for the deaths at The Church of the 13th Sign. The Bureau could punish Walter Skinner, though. The Office of Professional Conduct built the gallows.  The formal hearing was in two days, but formality had little to do with it. The truth became an outlying variable. Blame was the name of the game, and the ending for the Assistant Director - a foregone conclusion.

 

As Skinner motioned Mulder into his apartment, Skinner's shoulders were bent and weary stoicism creased his face.  He'd left the collar of his shirt open and rolled the sleeves of his dress shirt up past his forearms.

 

Out of habit, Mulder glanced around the big apartment. Skinner had arrived home recently. Mulder saw his suit coat draped carelessly over a chair and a tumbler of scotch on the coffee table, the ice beginning to melt into the amber liquid. Somewhere, out of sight, a radio or TV played the news, and the pleasant scent of cooking beef and apples and cinnamon drifted. A framed vacation photo of Skinner, shirtless, and a pretty brunette woman in a halter top rested on an end table. The photo was old; Skinner was smiling and had hair.

 

"You said you had something for me to look at," Skinner said, skipping the pointless fine-how-are-you formalities.

 

Mulder handed over the file. As he waited, he leaned against the cool wall in the foyer and rested his eyes. He'd gotten a few hours' sleep on Mrs. Scully's living room floor the previous night, but it did little to rest his mind. He felt tired from the inside out, an emptiness no catnap or cup of coffee would touch.

  

Skinner leafed through the file. "Autopsy reports?" He sounded puzzled.

 

"Autopsy reports on the fourteen cult members and three FBI agents killed during the raid," Mulder responded, blinking awake. "All done at Quantico and signed off on by the same Bureau pathologist.  Two the agents were pilots who died in the chopper crashes; the third and all the cult members were found to have died of gunshot wounds - specifically, bullets from Ophiuchus' rifle."

 

Skinner nodded. "Right.  I've seen these.  Do I want to know how and where you got them?"

 

"Probably not.  You'll see where two bodies were released to funeral homes for burial," he continued, "The two chopper pilots.  The body of the third agent, Randy Hodges, hasn't been released, nor have those of any of the cult members."

 

Skinner shook his head. "I don't follow."

 

"I count seventeen corpses besides Ophiuchus - fourteen cult members and three FBI agents.  Where are the other fifteen bodies?"

 

"Probably still at Quantico."

 

"No, they're not.  Not according to FBI records.  The autopsies have been completed and the cause of death established. The bodies should have been released, yet there's no record of anyone requesting or receiving them.  No funeral home.  No family member.  They should still be at Quantico, but they aren't."

 

Skinner adjusted his glasses. "So where are they?"

 

"My guess?  They never arrived at Quantico in the first place. No autopsies ever got done.  My guess is, except for the two chopper pilots, after the corpses were tagged, bagged, and loaded into the vans, the bodies got up and walked away."

 

"Bodies don't to that, Agent Mulder," Skinner responded, habitually using his old title. "Not as a general rule."

 

"We've seen ones that do.  We've seen a body take a dive off the roof of the Hoover Building, get crushed in the back of a garbage truck, and walk out of the morgue the next morning."

 

Skinner frowned and adjusted his glasses again.

 

Mulder heard a distant, electronic beep from what he presumed was Skinner's kitchen. Dinnertime passed hours ago, but microwaveable Hungry-Man meals were timeless.

 

"Don't you find it odd none of the cult members suffered minor wounds? None, except Ophiuchus, needed medical treatment?" Mulder asked. "All of them were pronounced dead at the scene. All the wounded were FBI agents, including Doggett, who claims someone on the Hostage Rescue Team shot him."

 

"You're saying the cult members were super-soldiers?  Are super-soldiers?  All of them?  Including the children?"

 

"And one FBI Agent. The one who shot Doggett.  Randy Hodges.  Check his weapon.  Dollars to doughnuts its signature matches the bullet the doctors cut out of John Doggett."

 

"Dollars to doughnuts?"

 

Mulder nodded slowly.

 

"I'd have to prove intent," Skinner said. "Even if Ballistics matches the bullet, it could still have been accidental.  If Agent Hodges and the cultists were super-soldiers, I'd need a way to prove it. A medical exam or-"

 

Mulder produced a videotape from under his arm.

 

"What do you have, Mulder?"

 

He walked past Skinner and slid the tape into the VCR in the living room, fumbling a bit to find the play button. The television screen went blue before grainy, choppy footage of a row of cars, stairs, and an elevator appeared.

 

"This is a captured feed from the security camera in the FBI parking garage, lower level, twelve hours after Scully's abduction," Mulder explained.  On the film, one figure emerged from the stairs as another stepped out of the shadows. "That's Deputy Director Kersh. The man talking to him is Special Agent Randy Hodges. He's the member of the Hostage Rescue Team whose body seems to have vanished from Quantico."

 

Skinner leaned against the back of a recliner and stared at the jerky black and white images on the screen.

 

Mulder pushed pause, stopping the tape at a point where Hodges' face was most visible. "He's the agent who gave me a hard time during the briefing.  I thought I recognized him, but the room was dark and I couldn't remember when or where I'd met him."

 

"When or where did you meet him?"

 

"Last May, in Bellefleur, Oregon.  Special Agent Randy Hodges used to be Deputy Ray Hoese."

 

"Why do I know that name?"

 

"Because he and his wife, Teresa, were abducted by the same ship that took me.  Teresa was returned, but Ray's body was never recovered." Mulder tapped the TV screen. "That’s Ray. Or at least, it used to be."

 

Skinner gave him a 'holy shit, batman' look.  Unquestionably, the investigation into the cult was a sham and a set-up, but they lacked proof. On the television screen, courtesy of Langly's hacking skills, was the proof, with a paper trail to back it up.  Deputy Ray Hoese had vanished from Bellefleur to return as Agent Hodges, die in a raid on The Church of the 13th Sign, and be resurrected on an FBI security camera talking to Deputy Director Kersh less than a day later.

 

"That's Ray," Mulder repeated. "The Gunmen are comparing photos of the cult members to missing person's reports involving abductees.  They'll have matches for you by tomorrow morning.  I'm betting, since Ophiuchus seems human, if the pathologist checks, his body will have implants and the type of scaring associated with multiple abductions.  If the pathologist isn't sure what to look for, have him review Duane Barry's file."

 

Skinner exhaled slowly, still looking at the image on the TV screen. "My God, Mulder."

 

"No, just 'Mulder,'" he said. "I'm not a deity."

 

The television froze Deputy Ray Hoese's face in time, with his expression as flat as death.  Mulder remembered Billy Miles calling, saying Ray had disappeared.  Mulder and Scully were in the Hoese's home. Scully held their baby girl. Teresa explained how Ray was a multiple abductee; Ray loved his family and wouldn't abandon them, despite what the police claimed.

 

According to Scully, Teresa was subjected to the same type of torture as Mulder and returned near death.  Jeremiah Smith had healed her but been abducted before he could heal Mulder.  Or anyone else. The Montana cult hadn't been there to find Ray Hoese's body, and Scully hadn't been there to dig him up and administer anti-virals.

 

"Did Teresa get her daughter back?" Mulder asked. "I remember Social Services coming for it after Teresa vanished. Scully said after Teresa's return and recovery, Teresa petitioned the court to get the baby back. What happened?"

 

"I'm not sure," Skinner answered. "I can check."

 

"I hope she has her daughter." Mulder looked at the screen again. "I'll call her. She deserves to know what happened to her husband." He zipped up his jacket and put a hand on the doorknob. If he broke a few traffic laws, he could be in Baltimore before William's bedtime. "Goodnight."

 

"That won't happen to Scully," Skinner said quickly, as if catching up with Mulder's train of thought. "We'll find her; we'll help her."

 

Mulder studied his shoes and looked at the smooth wood of Skinner's apartment door. A coat rack stood the door, and the AD's damp trench coat hung from one hook. Next to it hung a violet rain coat - evidence of a female presence. The coat was damp, so the woman it belonged to wore it recently. Mulder didn't ask because Skinner wouldn't tell him, but Mulder hoped it belonged to Sharon Skinner. He hoped she waited in the kitchen or in bed. He didn’t want Skinner coming home late to eat a microwave meal alone, drink expensive Scotch, and watch ESPN.

 

"We have her records of how she treated you." Skinner lectured the back of Mulder's head. "We know what to do. You're assuming the worst. We don't know who took her or why.  We will find her. One way or another."

 

"One way or another," Mulder agreed as he left.

 

****

 

The days became merely days, one blurring into another. Hours fell into days, days into weeks, and weeks into months. The gray January faded, Valentine's Day passed unmarked, and March arrived like a lion, covering DC in icy dampness. Bare tree branches weathered the storms like black skeletons, thrashing angrily and helplessly at the sky. Winter retreated but came sulking back one last time before beginning to thaw.

 

William learned to roll over, to suck his toes, and to do mini pushups. He babbled "mama," but grinned coquettishly and refused to cooperate as Mulder tried to get him to say it again.

 

Maggie Scully left a pillow and blanket for Mulder on the sofa before she went to bed. About half the time, Mulder was asleep in her living room early the next morning, with the coffee table pushed aside and the portable crib right beside him.  She never invited him to stay, but the spare key remained under the white flowerpot on the porch.

 

The dreams of Scully continued, coming to him like a trout nibbling on the end of a fishing line.  She came as night fell - talking, embracing, making love, and making him feel alive - and once he woke, another morning was broken without her.

 

After allegations of corruption came to light, Kersh resigned rather than testify.  Several high bureau officials resigned as well, and about half the agents assigned to the task force investigating the cult vanished under mysterious circumstances.  As the dust settled, Mulder heard various names tossed around as the next Deputy Director of the FBI. Walter Skinner's name was one of them.

 

Ophiuchus rose high in the sky, moving west, and faded into the dawn, as the followers of The Church of The 13th Sign had disappeared into the woodwork. They were there, though, beyond the horizon. Waiting.

 

Venus came from the east, before sunrise, a brilliant light in the lower heavens.  As Mulder's fruitless search for Scully continued, Orion the Hunter dominated the cold winter sky, but began sliding sideways into the horizon, signaling the arrival of another spring.

 

****

 

Mulder failed her in increments.

 

No lights came on as he flipped the switch, which meant he'd forgotten to pay Scully's electric bill again. Without heat or air conditioning, the apartment had the warm, stale smell of a cat's fur. The last of her potted plants had succumbed to dehydration. He checked her mail; the folks at Citibank felt neglected as well.

 

He opened the refrigerator. One last sigh of cool air escaped; the power hadn't been off more than a few days. The refrigerator shelves were empty except for an out-of-date cup of yogurt, two damp bottles of salad dressing, and some Chinese take-out about three months past its prime.  He transferred the lot to the kitchen trash but, as his stomach started to roll, elected to leave the contents of the crisper in hopes it would someday grow a salad.

 

The nursery remained a cheerful yellow, with the inhabitants of Pooh Corner cavorting on the walls. The crib was empty, and the miniature clothes in the dresser no longer fit William.  Mulder stood in the doorway for a few minutes and turned away.

 

In the bedroom, Scully's clothes hung neatly in the closet, a collection of blue, black, and beige suits. Their collars still smelled like her skin.  The hamper held the same laundry, and the same sheets were on the bed, wrinkled and far from Downy fresh. The clock on the nightstand was still set to go off at seven a.m. - "Plenty of time," she'd said the night before her meeting with Skinner, though William woke them at five.  She'd slept in her robe, too tired to get up and change into pajamas. He'd slept with his arms around her and his cheek against her damp hair.

 

Mulder pulled off his shoes and sweatshirt and lay across the bed in his T-shirt and jeans. He stared at the ceiling and let the not-so-distant memories wash over him like the tide.  For once, he couldn't pretend she was in the next room or at the corner drugstore.  Her presence was gone, leaving the musty apartment silent and still.  Tomblike.

 

He rolled and pulled open the top drawer of the nightstand. Among the pens and notepads and to-be-read issues of JAMA sat an unassuming journal he'd first found in an Allentown hospital years ago. He re-discovered it in February, about a month after her abduction, but had yet to open it. Mulder traced the cover with his thumb, wondering what answers might be inside.  Wondering if she'd written about him.  Or to him, as she had during her cancer.  Wondering if she'd put the journal in the drawer for him to find, wanting him to read the words she couldn't bring herself to tell him aloud.

 

After a moment, he put the journal back and shoved the drawer closed. Mulder let his head fall back onto the stale pillow.

 

Not yet.

 

****

 

Theorists purported time and space could bend, allowing one universe to overlap with another.  According to Scully, physicists called these hypotheses 'string theory,' and argued endlessly about the possible permutations and implications.   

 

The ancients called the mystical pleats in the fabric of space-time ley lines - powerful channels of energy flowing over the Earth. Where ley lines crossed, they created doorways between the dimensions. The Vikings had 'spokenwegen' and the Neolithic inhabitants of Great Britain had the 'cursuses,' the walkways of the dead. Ancient cultures marked the routes the spirits traveled between one world and the next. The Anasazi Indians in the New Mexican desert built the Chacoan roads sometime before memory. The Mayans constructed the white roads - the 'sacbeob' - of the Yucatan peninsula.  Monuments like Stonehenge marked the intersection of ley lines in Britain. Mulder had seen maps linking the vortices in the Pacific Northwest. Peru had the Nazca geoglyphs, Wessex had the Avebury circles, and the American heartland had the Mystic Pizza Hut.

 

He'd suspected the place merited further investigation.

 

Mulder pushed open the door. Dr. Zaius, the blonde ape from Planet of the Apes, was at her post behind the register.  Don Henley sang “The End of the Innocence” on the old jukebox, his voice pumiced smooth by time and tide. The cool interior of the restaurant was dim and deserted, the floor rough and uneven, and the air thick with the scent of yeast and flour.  It could have been any time between the 1980's and yesterday. No posters advertised the newest pizza and pasta permutations, no banners offered $9.99 specials, and he saw no calendars or newspapers - nothing he could use to establish a date. Inside the Mystic Pizza Hut, nothing ever changed and nothing ever would.  It was the franchise time forgot.

 

"You want the usual?" Dr. Zauis asked impassively as the door eased closed behind him. Mulder nodded, and the old woman disappeared into the kitchen to bang some pots and pans, leaving him alone.

 

The rhythm of the song was a slow heartbeat. Mulder nodded along as he leaned on the jukebox, scanning the tables and booths for Scully. After a few minutes, he slid into the first booth. He sat so he could see the door.  As he waited for her to arrive, he drummed his fingers on the tabletop and looked out the window. Night fell over the Midwest, casting long shadows across the fields. Outside the restaurant a single stretch of pavement, flanked by tall rows of corn, continued until it vanished into the distance. 

 

Mulder jumped as Dr. Zauis set a plastic cup, a plate, and a fork on the table, and turned to return to the kitchen.

 

"Wait," he called. "We need two. There's someone else coming. A woman. She's- Ma'am?"

 

She didn't seem to hear him as she walked away.

 

He looked at the single cup, watching the ice melt into the soda. He got up and walked around the restaurant again. Don Henley played softly, the oven door squeaked, and the jukebox lights glowed violet and crimson in time with the beat.

 

In the dreams, Scully waited patiently for him at the edge of night.  He'd never had to search for her, and a night or a nap never passed without her coming. Sometimes she wanted to talk, to walk with him or dance or stargaze, and sometimes she sought physical solace in his arms, but she always came.

 

Growing increasingly uneasy, Mulder went to the register. He leaned over the counter and called "Ma'am" loudly until Dr. Zauis reappeared. She wiped her hands on a dishtowel.

 

"There's a woman.  The woman who's with me-" he started.

 

"She's not here."

 

"I know she's not here," he said in annoyance. "I see that.  It's my dream.  But she's-"

  

"She's not coming," Zauis interrupted impassively.

 

"She has to come," he insisted. Dr. Zauis stared at him blankly. "She'll come," Mulder repeated adamantly.

 

"No."

 

"Where is she?  What have you done with her?" he demanded. "I'll find her.  I swear to God I will.  Scully," he called. He pushed off the counter and scanned the restaurant again.

 

The restaurant contained an aging jukebox, empty booths, two tiny bathrooms, a payphone, and a PacMan game so old it belonged in the Smithsonian.  His soda cup gathered condensation on a table at the far side of the room, and a dusty FBI-issue blue Ford Taurus was parked outside the window.  The jukebox went dark as the song ended, and whirred as it switched tracks. After a moment, Joe Cocker's worn voice replaced Don Henley's, and the lights and backbeat restarted. "Hold on," Joe requested softly, and promised someone, "I'll be back for you; it won't be long."

 

When the night comes.

 

Mulder felt a cold prickling sensation began at the base of his skull and trickle down his spine like a lazy ice cube.

 

"Don't look too hard, Agent Mulder," Zauis said cryptically, from behind him. "You might not like what you find."

 

"Shut up." He stalked out of the restaurant. He shoved the front door open so hard it banged against the side of the building. 

 

"Scully," he called. He turned in a circle in the parking lot. "Where are you? Talk to me."

 

The wind whistled across the fields, bending the cornstalks and rustling the leaves so they sounded like whispers from the shadows. He heard no people. No cars passed. He saw an old restaurant beside a narrow road stretching between two darkening horizons.

 

He waited.

 

No sounds. No vehicles. No partner. The long, lonely highway ran nothing to nothing.

 

"Scully!" he screamed again. His voice broke and silence answered.

 

****

 

Mulder told himself the dreams weren't real. They'd never been real. Scully didn't come to him. Her soul didn't reach out to his for comfort. Dreams were merely his subconscious at play. Fantasies fueled by loneliness and testosterone. Or delusions brought on by sleep deprivation, fear, and suggestibility. They didn't mean anything.

 

That afternoon, he cleaned the rotted carrots and cantaloupe out of the crisper in Scully's fridge. He threw away the pots of dirt which were once houseplants, and he took out the kitchen trash.  He washed her bedsheets and the dirty clothes in the hamper and, while they dried, reset her clocks to Daylight Savings Time and replaced the battery in the smoke alarm. He changed the burnt-out bulb in the fixture over her kitchen table, which he'd promised to do in January.

 

Mulder put one check in the mail to the electric company to get the power back on and another to Visa before Scully's credit rating started to slip. He went to see William and played a few rounds of 'Mulder's gonna eat your toes' while Mrs. Scully tried not to look like she hovered. And, ninety-three days after Scully's abduction from The Church of the 13th Sign, Mulder stopped looking for a spaceship and started looking for a body.

 

****

 

Valid anger and putting blame where it was due; fear, guilt, and impotent rage - po-tay-toe, pa-tah-toe.  All things being equal, Mulder would rather tongue kiss Roseanne Barr. Or be subjected to a three-day “Golden Girls” marathon.  Or chaperon a herd of Kindergarteners to see Disney on Ice.  Or be stripped naked, covered in honey, and devoured by ravenous fire ants.

 

Unfortunately, the tenacious Agent Reyes refused to take "hell no" for an answer.  After months of ignoring e-mail and phone messages from John Doggett, Mulder emerged from the Richmond morgue late one night to find Monica Reyes leaning against the bumper of the Volvo, waiting.

 

"It's not her," he said, before she could speak. "It's not Scully. You can tell your partner he was right not to waste a trip."

 

"He'll be glad. It's not her, I mean," Reyes corrected. "You're a hard man to track down."

 

"Places to go, bodies to ID," he responded tersely. He avoided eye contact as he fished his car keys out of his jacket pocket.

 

"This woman wasn't even close, though, Mulder.  Are you planning to investigate every redheaded female corpse entered into the NCIC?  Keep looking until you go insane?"

 

He gave her as sarcastic a grin as he could manage. "That is the plan, yes."

 

"It's not a good one."

 

Mulder sighed tiredly, otherwise ignoring her.

 

He'd left D.C. as soon as the woman's description popped up in the FBI's NCIC database as an unidentified corpse in Richmond, setting off The Gunmen's bells and whistles. The description didn't match Scully exactly, but it was something. A hope. A possibility. Better than nothing.  Something to do besides wait. 

 

That was two hours, three cups of coffee, and a hundred miles ago. Now, at four in the morning, Mulder's forehead pounded from lack of sleep, his shoulders ached, and his skin smelled like yet another morgue.

 

The Jane Doe in the steel drawer was someone's daughter. Before her death, she'd been someone's friend and neighbor and coworker. She'd even been someone's wife or mother or lover, but she hadn't been Dana Scully.

 

"You won't find her this way, Mulder," Reyes persisted. "You're looking in the wrong place."

 

He turned, his car keys in his hand, and asked irritably, "Where do you suggest I look?"

 

"Jungians believe in the collective unconscious. If we look inside ourselves the answers are there, waiting. Unless you're afraid to look. Or you're so blinded by anger and darkness you look but can't see."

 

He stared at her for a second before muttering, "Oh, shit," under his breath and shoving the key into the lock. On a good day, he found Agent Reyes interesting and quirky; on a bad day he found her annoying as hell.

 

He hadn't had a good day in a long time.

 

Instead of moving, she leaned against the fender of his car and crossed her arms. "I've been reviewing your old case files.  Dana's been abducted before, in 1994. According to your report, she was one of a group of women subjected to experiments leaving them sterile. Yet, miraculously, last March, before your abduction, she conceived a healthy son." 

 

"Alert the Vatican," he said, but with less sarcasm. "Look, I need to get back.  I'm-"

 

"Your son," she added. "Whom the super-soldiers came for but left. You're assuming Dana's abduction was to make her a super-soldier, but what if it wasn't? What if there was another purpose?"

 

"Which would be what, Agent Reyes?"

 

"To harvest ova again. To create the baby They'd hoped William would be. The ova have to be there for Dana to conceive. All it would take is genetic material from you, and They could create and implant fetuses in unsuspecting women. As They have before, according to your files."

 

Mulder rolled his shoulders and glanced at his watch as if he had better things to do than listen to Reyes' encyclopedic ignorance on the subjects of super-soldiers and genetic experiments.

 

"Corrupt forces in the government wanted John and Dana dead and the X-files closed," she persisted earnestly. "It's what the setup at The Church of the 13th Sign was about. But the UFO interfered. I saw it, Mulder. You saw it. The ship took Dana before Ophiuchus or Agent Hodges could shoot her. There has to be a reason."

 

"What does Agent Doggett think of your theory?" 

 

"He thinks I've been reading way too many of your X-files and I need my head examined."

 

Mulder put his car keys back in his pocket. "All right; I'm listening."

 

In truth, nothing awaited him in D.C. except Mrs. Scully's or the Gunmen's sofa. The cold, foggy Saturday night promised to become a dreary, gray Sunday morning.  He'd have leads to follow-up on, phone calls to make, and piles of data to sift through. By dusk, he'd be no closer to finding Scully than he was in January.

 

Agent Reyes produced a pack of Morley's, taking one before she passed them and a lighter to him as a peace offering.  After a second, Mulder took both, not bothering to feel guilty.  Hell, the worst it could do was kill him.

 

"I'm still trying to quit," she informed him half-heartedly. "Really."

 

He tilted his head to light his cigarette, cupping the flame to protect it. "It looks like it's going well."

 

Mulder inhaled and coughed as his lungs protested. He settled against the Volvo's fender, getting the butt of his jeans wet. 

 

"I read the file on Emily Sim, the child They used Dana's ovum to create. You weren't Emily's biological father, though," Reyes said, and paused for a drag. "Not according to the DNA profiles.  I wondered if the in vitro procedures Dana underwent were a sham - with the true purpose being to obtain semen from you. Except the clinic burned to the ground, destroying any samples They had."

 

Mulder exhaled. He watched the cloud of smoke dissipate into the wet night.

 

"I know there are pieces missing from the puzzle, but I have a feeling I'm on the right track," she continued. "William is the key - or rather, William's parents are the key. Both abductees, both humans who survived exposure to the alien virus. The night William was born, those super-soldiers thought he was their messiah, but he wasn't. Not quite. So They left him and they're trying to create another child."

 

A black, windowless medical examiner's van pulled into the parking lot. It turned and backed up the ramp to the morgue.  The headlights died, and an attendant emerged from the building to help the driver unload the body. Mulder had seen this morbid dance a thousand times. A homicide, a suicide, an overdose, or a car accident, and the M.E. got the late night call.  The body would be weighed, measured, and examined.  Photographs would be taken; reports would be written and distributed.

 

"It's not so bad," Mulder said softly, exhaling another smoky breath.  Reyes turned her head, watching him. "Being dead.  The hard part is the dying. And the people you leave behind.  But death..." He looked up, studying the overcast sky. "It's not so bad."

 

"Why are you so sure Dana's dead?"

 

He took another drag. The tip of his cigarette glowed orange in the darkness. "I didn't say she was."

 

"But you think she is," she responded. "I feel it. You're going through the motions, but you don't believe you're going to find her after this long. Not alive. Not in any condition you'll be able to bring her back."

 

"You think I'm giving up? Does it look like I'm giving up? I'll never give up on Scully."

 

"That's not what I said."

 

Reyes moved as if to put a hand on his arm but put her hand in her pocket instead.

 

Mulder said, "She doesn't come anymore," to the cloud of smoke in front of his face. "In my dreams. She did, but now, if I close my eyes, there's nothing. I open them, and there's still nothing."

 

Anyone else would have hauled him to the nearest ER for a CT scan and a Thorazine drip, but Reyes nodded in understanding. "There's William."

 

"Yeah," he agreed softly.

 

They leaned against the gray Volvo, not looking at each other as the thick mist became a slow drizzle. They could walk thirty feet and stand under the eaves of the morgue, but neither suggested it.

 

"It's like being shot," he said after a minute. "The first second afterward as you realize what's happened but before you feel anything. You know how bad it is and how much it's going to hurt but time slows. You wait. That's what I feel: the empty, drifting lack of sensation before the pain sets in."

 

"I'm sorry," she said softly, awkwardly.

 

He tossed the half-smoked cigarette down and ground it out with the toe of his boot. Across the wet parking lot, the men had the body unloaded, and the steel gurney rattled as they wheeled it up the ramp and into the morgue.

 

"On the ship," he said, still not looking at her. "The missing piece of the puzzle: where They got my DNA. Semen. Whatever. On the ship. During my abduction."

 

"The report Dana filed doesn't mention that."

 

"No, it doesn't," he agreed.

 

"You didn't tell her," Reyes guessed

 

Mulder didn't respond.

 

The morgue doors swung closed. The sound of the gurney's clattering wheels faded, replaced by the pattering of the rain.

 

"I'm sorry," she said again, after a moment.

 

"Yeah." He found his keys again, and fitted the key into the wet lock, still not looking at her.

 

"Mulder-" she started worriedly, but he was in the driver's seat.

 

"Thanks for the smoke," he said before he closed the car door.

 

****

 

Half an hour later, Mulder stopped at a rest area beside the interstate, parking among the tractor-trailers and RV's stabled there for the night. He got out, shoved his hands on his pockets and hunched his shoulders against the rain as he crossed the dark parking lot.

 

A search of his pockets yielded ninety-eight cents in change and some lint, so he fed a crumpled dollar into the coffee machine. It rejected it the first two times. After some smoothing and coaxing, it swallowed the bill with a mechanical gulp. He pushed the button for black coffee, large, and leaned against the machine. His temples throbbed as he waited for the cup to drop and fill.

 

Nothing happened. He pushed the button again and cursed impatiently. Mulder tried a third time, slamming it hard with his palm, but no paper cup fell. The machine remained silent, smugly blinking for him to insert his money and make a selection.

 

He stood in the partially enclosed shelter between the public restrooms staring at the uncooperative coffee machine. The vending machines on either side of it offered overpriced bottles of soda and an array of chips and candy bars, but he’d used his only dollar bill. He wasn't risking giving it a five, and shooting it seemed extreme, even for him.

 

Mulder hit the button again and, growing increasingly angry, shoved the machine, managing to jostle it. Encouraged, he shoved it again and gave it a hard kick.

 

The digital display continued blinking for him to insert $1.00 and select a hot, crappy beverage.

 

"Stupid, fucking, idiot machine." His words echoed inside the shelter and through the quiet rest stop. "Goddamn it!"

 

He shoved it one last time, sending it squeaking back an inch on its metal legs. Giving up, he sat on a bench outside the men's room and exhaled like an angry bull. Mulder balled his fingers into fists, wanting to hit something. He felt a lump rise in his throat.

 

Mulder sniffed and swallowed, swearing to himself he wouldn't cry. He was forty-one years old, and he wouldn't sit at a rest stop in the middle of the night and cry about an inane cup of bad coffee. He felt tired and irritable and alone, and he needed to get a grip. 

 

And some caffeine. Some sleep. Scully. Then he'd be okay.

 

The memory of a woman's face flashed in his mind - the auburn-haired Jane Doe in the Richmond morgue, her delicate features slack and her pale skin tinged bluish gray.  He'd watched expressionlessly as the Medical Examiner folded the sheet back, not sure if he prayed it was Scully or prayed it wasn't.

 

He hated Them: the grays, the super-soldiers, and the impeccably dressed men who tried to play God from the shadows.  He hated Them for what they'd done to him but also for what they'd taken - months of his life.  Time with Scully during her pregnancy with William. Time to talk things out, to work things out, instead of having life, love, and fatherhood crash over him like a tidal wave. He hated Scully for the things she'd left unsaid and unresolved. He hated himself for letting her leave them unsaid and unresolved. He hated Them for abducting her and her for getting herself abducted.

 

His forehead wrinkled painfully, and his nose continued to drip. He wrapped his arms around his body and hunched his shoulders, trying to protect himself as he began to shake. The dark sky wept with him, raining down on the sidewalk and drumming against the thin roof of the shelter.

 

Any minute, Scully.

 

****

 

The scruffy clerk behind the desk at the motel didn't look up from his skin magazine as he swiped Mulder's credit card and slid a key across the counter.  As Mulder walked across the parking lot, the windows of the other rooms were dark, their curtains drawn.  It would be dawn in another few hours, but the last of night still held firm to the black horizon.  The rain had slacked off, leaving a layer of ghostly fog drifting over the wet pavement.

 

Room 455 was in the far building, up the metal stairs, and around back. Mulder opened the squeaky door, flipped on the lamp, and dropped his duffle bag on the low bed.  In the dim light, the mirror over the dresser reflected a tired stranger with red-rimmed eyes and rain-dampened hair.  He frowned at the image as he turned the television on. He sat on the lumpy mattress and stared at the mirror for a few minutes until he motivated himself enough to reach for the phone.

 

"You're in Fredericksburg," Frohike said tersely, instead of hello. "I thought you were going to Richmond.  What are you doing at a motel? What's happening?"

 

"It wasn't her," Mulder responded. He cradled the receiver against his shoulder as he untied his boots. "The body in the morgue. You were right; it wasn't Scully. Just another wild goose chase. I'm- I'm gonna stay here tonight. I'm too tired to be driving."

 

He pulled the bedspread down, piled one cheap pillow atop the other, and leaned back, clicking the remote control tiredly. The motel television offered infomercials, cable news, and a variety of soft core porn - some he'd seen and none he wanted to pay to see again.

 

"Are you still there, Mulder?"

 

"Yeah. I'm still here."

 

"We got a report of a UFO sighting earlier tonight in Pennsylvania. We're looking into it."

 

"Okay," Mulder mumbled. His shirt and socks felt clammy, like he'd taken them out of the dryer too soon. He didn't have the energy to sit up and take them off. "You remember the Lombard Research Facility?"

 

"The fertility clinic with the clones?" Frohike answered. "You want the file on it?"

 

"I want you to find it or find whatever its present incarnation is."

 

"You think it's where They're holding Scully?"

 

"Maybe," Mulder answered noncommittally.

 

"We'll get right on it," Frohike promised.

 

"If you find it, let Agent Reyes know.” He added, “And Agent Doggett."

 

Frohike cleared his throat in disapproval, but he didn't argue.

 

Mulder continued to flip through the channels. He stopped at an old film featuring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck he'd watched once with Scully.  He disliked the movie, but it was one of her favorites - a tale of star-crossed lovers and a romance never meant to be. "The best love stories don't have happy endings," she'd told him that winter afternoon, in her pragmatic way.

 

"Mulder?" Frohike's voice said, reminding Mulder he still held the telephone. "Are you okay?"

 

"Yeah," he lied. "Did you guys do a drive-by tonight? Check on everybody?"

 

"Byers did. He said it looked like William was up at one, but he and Mrs. Scully have been asleep since then. If you're not going to make it back tonight, we'll check again in a few hours."

 

"Okay. Thanks." Mulder paused, watching the movie on the television screen. "You were right. She takes good care of him. Of William. Mrs. Scully does."

 

"She seems to," Frohike agreed.

 

"She does," he repeated absently. 

 

Mulder twisted and fished his wallet out of his back pocket. He slipped the photographs from their little plastic sleeves and examined them.

 

Mrs. Scully personally supported JCPenney's Portrait Studio, and the latest photo shoot featured William in a sailor suit and hat, showing off the beginnings of his first two teeth as he grinned for the camera. Except for the shape of his eyes and the dark hair, his features echoed Scully's more than Mulder's.  It didn't seem possible her baby was five months old. Their baby was five months old.

 

Behind the new photo of William, Mulder had the two of Scully, creased where he'd folded them and worn at the edges. Both were black and white, taken by a crime scene photographer two years ago and pilfered from the evidence room by a wayward FBI Agent. In the first, Mulder and Scully stood nose to nose, their trench coats flapping and their lips parted as they gestured over a body. They were Agents Mulder and Scully in the first picture: standing in some farmer's muddy field, debating some fragment of evidence, neither willing to budge an inch.  In the second photo, Mulder stalked away in disgust, but Scully looked to the side, as though something in the distance caught her attention. Her features looked soft and vulnerable, and her eyes seemed far away. The second image, a fleeting expression captured by an anonymous camera lens while she was unawares, was Dana Scully.

 

If Agent Reyes was right, the hybrid project continued. They'd harvested more ova to make more Emilys. Or more Williams, to be specific. Thousands of them.  More children conceived by medical rape, born in a test tube, and destined to die for an agenda. If Agent Reyes was right, Scully wasn't coming back.  Not mostly-dead, not as a super-soldier, not at all.

 

"Are you sure you're okay?" Frohike asked again. "You're kind of... I don't know.  You're worrying me, Mulder."

 

"I'm tired," he responded, and laid the pictures aside.

 

"You sound tired. Get some sleep," he suggested. "Check in with us in the morning."

 

Mulder mumbled something and hung up the telephone. He stared at the water-spotted ceiling as the movie droned in the background. In the motel bathroom, a leaky faucet dripped.

 

His weapon was in his duffel bag at the foot of the bed. Mulder raised his head, looking at the bag and wondering if the dark thoughts prowling the edges of his brain were pragmatism or cowardice. Unable to decide and too exhausted to care, he turned the TV off and closed his eyes. He listened to the faucet and let his mind drift away from harsh reality and into the battlefield of the warrior-poets.

 

****

 

This time, it was his dream - the old one of the boy and the beach and the elaborate ship they built and rebuilt endlessly on the shore. 

 

He dreamed of a peaceful, innocent place from his childhood, not far from his parents' summer home. He and Samantha used to ride their bikes to Squibnocket Beach, and spend long afternoons playing in the warm sand and searching for pirate treasure among the dunes. 

 

After Sam's abduction, Mulder returned to the same empty beach, alone.  He'd sit on the rocks for hours, watching the tide and waiting for Samantha to return. Dusk came, but she never did. He remained alone beneath the indifferent heavens as night fell over the ocean.

 

As an adult, boy and the beach began creeping into Mulder’s dreams, a roughhewn Eden amid the nightmares he saw everyday with the FBI. Maybe the dream symbolized restoration of innocence or backtracking to a path not taken. Or a cop-out, a coward's refuge - a longing for a simpler, easier life he wasn't destined to have. Perhaps memory and desire swirled together in his subconscious, both of them seductive liars.

 

Regardless, the dream hadn't come in years. Not since before his abduction, not since Cancerman invaded his brain with electrodes and scalpels, polluting Mulder's thoughts with his hissing voice.

 

In the dream, Mulder sat on a flat, weathered rock, waiting. He looked out at the sea and felt the salty wind caress his skin and ruffle his hair like an old friend.

 

Far down the meandering shore, seagulls squawked and scattered. He spotted two figures approaching: a woman and the boy, backlit by the molten sunset. Scully and the boy.  The wind whistled through the dunes, blowing her auburn hair and whipping her long skirt.  The boy was five or six, with his chestnut hair tousled and his round cheeks pink from a day in the sun.

 

The boy let go of Scully's hand and ran toward Mulder. He laughed excitedly as his little tennis shoes sent the sand flying.  Scully followed at a sedate pace, calling half-a-dozen directions the boy didn't listen to.

  

Mulder's watched, with the hair on the back of his neck prickling as the boy approached. "William," his lips moved in recognition as he got to his feet. He'd seen the boy in a thousand dreams, yet never questioned who he was. "Oh my God."

 

Instead of a tiny baby, he saw a little boy laughing and playing and wanting to share some wondrous new discovery with his father.

 

"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy," the boy requested, and Mulder looked behind him to see if someone else was being addressed. "You have to come see."

 

"What- What is it?" Mulder asked uncertainly.

 

The boy skidded to a stop in front of him, panting. "A ship. You have to see."

 

"There's a ship?  A pirate ship?"

 

"No." William grabbed his hand and tugged impatiently. "Come see," he repeated. "Hurry.  It's hu-mungous."

 

Mulder stared at the boy, dumbstruck, trying to accustom himself to this new role. He glanced at Scully, who looked amused as she caught up with her son.

  

"This is William? Oh my God," he repeated.

 

She pushed back her hair as the breeze blew it across her face again. "He's you."

 

"We did this?"

 

"We did." She came closer, tiptoeing to press her mouth to his. For a second, in his dream, he tasted her lips. "I love you."

 

The boy pleaded, "Daddy," tugging harder on Mulder's hand. "Come on."

 

"I gotta go see this ship," Mulder informed her in mock seriousness. He felt giddy as he stepped back. "It's humungous."

 

"Go," she responded, smiling.

 

"I love you. We'll come back," he promised.

 

He turned and let William pull him down the beach. Their feet pounded and slid against the sand. Mulder looked back. Scully waved as she watched them go.

 

"It's here," William urged. The child let go of Mulder's hand to scurry up a pile of slippery rocks.  Mulder followed.  From the top, Mulder saw it in the distance - an elaborate space ship built of sand. It sat on an isolated stretch of beach and the tide had reached it, starting to nibble away at one edge.

 

"There." William pointed one Band-Aid wrapped finger. "A ship."

 

He looked up as if wanting reassurance, so Mulder nodded.

 

"I found it."

 

"You did," Mulder confirmed.

 

They stood on top of the rocks with the wind blowing their shirts and the sun's dying rays buttering their skin in orange light. Mulder put his hand on William's shoulder as they looked at the ship.

 

"It's getting washed away," the boy said worriedly.

 

"We can build it again."

 

"Make it stop," William requested urgently. "The ocean's taking my ship."

 

"I can't stop the tide. We can rebuild it, though," Mulder promised. He rubbed William's shoulder. "Tomorrow.  Okay, buddy?  We'll come back tomorrow."

 

The long fingers of dusk began to take hold of the shore, and the chill in the air made him shiver.

 

"Okay," William agreed.  He rested his head against Mulder's leg trustingly, watching the sea and shadows overtake the ship.

 

As he stroked the boy's disheveled hair, Mulder glanced over his shoulder and, in the distance, saw Scully watching them.  Her skirt whipped wildly against her legs as she raised her hand, waving.

 

She smiled.

 

****

 

Mulder practiced saying the sentence in the hazy motel mirror as he shaved, as he drove to Baltimore, and as he parked, got out, and made his way up the sidewalk. Plastic Easter eggs hung from the tree branches in the front yard, and a cheerful ceramic bunny perched on the porch, holding out a basket hopefully.

 

Instead of letting himself in, Mulder knocked. He studied the floor of the porch as he waited. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, took them out again, and wiped his damp palms on his thighs.

 

"I want my son," he said as soon as the door opened.

 

Mrs. Scully wore a tailored pink suit. She held William on her hip and her purse and the diaper bag in her hand, ready to walk out the door.

 

"Fox?" she said like she might have misheard. "I wasn't expecting you. We- William and I were leaving for Mass."

 

"I- I-" he stuttered, trying to say it again. "I think he should live with me."

 

"With you?"

 

"I'm his father.  He should live with me," he managed to repeat. "I can take care of him."

 

She stared at him in disbelief and stepped back. She gestured for him to come inside, as if worried they would give the neighbors something to talk about.

 

"I can," he repeated.

 

She laid her purse on the end table and shifted William to her other hip. "You can come by and see him anytime.  You know you're welcome-"

 

He shook his head. "He's mine.  He should live with me.  You can come by and see him anytime."

 

She walked around the sofa and sat down, holding William on her lap. "Fox-" she started tolerantly, soothing him like this was some adolescent whim.

 

"He's mine," Mulder insisted. "We can do DNA testing, but you know he is."

 

"Genetically, maybe, but you-"

 

"No, not just genetically.  And not 'maybe.' He's mine.  I know it's not what you want to hear, but it's true. The last time Dana tried in vitro was two years ago. You can check her medical records. Check the dates. You can watch the videotape-"

 

"Tell me you don't have a videotape of you with my daughter," she requested evenly.

 

"It's a tape she made for William. While she was pregnant and I was gone. It's a tape for William, about me. Why would she do make it unless she wanted him to know who I was? I love her. I love him."

 

Mrs. Scully remained quiet while the baby squirmed on her lap, wrinkling her skirt.  She turned her head and looked through the front window.  In the yard, the morning breeze rustled the leaves and made the plastic eggs suspended from the dogwood tree bang together randomly.

 

"Why didn't you marry her?"

 

"I asked her," he answered. "She said 'no.'"

  

Mulder waited, uncomfortable and not sure what else to do or say.  After a few more seconds of silence, he smoothed his palms over his legs again and started chewing the inside of his lower lip.  He had all his verbal ammunition ready for a showdown at the Mrs. Scully Corral, but her non-response unsettled him more than outright refusal.

 

"Why now?" Mrs. Scully asked, patting William's back absently. "You never came to the hospital after he was born.  Sometimes you go days without seeing him, without even calling.  After all these months-"

 

"I gave him to you so I could find Dana."

 

"-you can’t find Dana," she continued quietly, still looking out the window, "so you want her son."

 

"He's my son, too," he answered, though his words didn't seem to register with Mrs. Scully.

 

At the house across the street, a normal family left for Easter services, with everyone dressed in their new outfits and scrubbed squeaky clean.  The father started the minivan while the mother buckled a pastel bouquet of little girls into the back, spacing them out among the seats to avoid wrinkling and squabbling.

 

"Dana's not coming back, is she?" she asked, her voice eerily soft, like the calm before the storm. "Not this time."

 

"I'm sorry," he said, as if it made a difference. "I'm not giving up. We'll keep looking, but..." He caught his lip between his teeth again, biting hard. The coppery taste of blood seeped into his mouth. He exhaled "I promised Dana I’d take care of him. William. Keep him safe. I can. I intend to."

 

He waited for Mrs. Scully to argue, but she sat looking through the window as the blue minivan backed out of the driveway, passing the white picket fence, and headed for church.

 

****

 

Like a modern-day urban nomad, Mulder's life had been condensed into a duffel bag in the trunk of his car: a jacket, a change of clothes, his shaving kit, some extra bullets, a checkbook, and a box of old X-files.  His wallet and keys stayed in his pockets, his boots on his feet, and his gun within arm's reach.  The Gunmen let him use their shower and Mrs. Scully offered her washer and dryer, so Mulder had little need to return to his apartment in Alexandria.  Mr. Pao, the old Chinese man across the hall, fed his fish, collected his mail, and poked around his apartment - an arrangement dating back to 1995 and the first time Mulder died.

 

He opened the door, and a cool breath of memories wafted out: old books and worn leather and too many nights alone. A layer of dust had accumulated, and Mr. Pao had piled a month of newspapers on the coffee table.

 

Mulder shifted William to his other hip and went to the window. He opened the blinds and let the sun in for the first time since January.  The light on his answering machine flashed red, pleading for relief.  There were baskets of laundry in the bedroom, but he no longer remembered which were the clean clothes and which were dirty. The sheets and comforter clung to the foot of the bed, and one pillow had slid to the floor, joining the November 2000 issue of “Penthouse,” a copy of “What to Expect When You're Expecting,” and a resume he'd been half-heartedly updating.

 

The paperwork for the Volvo still lay on the kitchen counter beside the price tag he'd torn off the ear of a Snuffaluffagus. Except for a few cans of soup, the cupboards were bare, as was the refrigerator. The potatoes in the vegetable bin beside the stove had put off shoots and mutinied until the onions caved in, turning an odd blackish-green. The sink held dirty dishes and mugs submerged in a pan of murky water. A flyer for the pizza place down the block was taped to the cabinet, the paper curled at the edges and the colors faded a bit with age.  

 

He'd returned to a stranger's life. Entering his apartment was like walking through his old high school or visiting his childhood home. This was a person he used to be, but now barely recognized.  Welcome to the Fox Mulder Museum, exhibit 1, circa October-December 2000.

 

"Pretty crappy, isn't it?" he asked William, who clutched Mulder's sweatshirt and looked around uncertainly. Mulder would put the baby down but couldn't find a place to put him.

 

He flipped through the mail, sorting the bills from the ads one-handed. "Toys-R-Us is having a sale." He showed William the circular. "We could go get a crib. A swing. Some toys."

 

Bottles, bibs, formula, diapers, groceries, Pledge, Lysol, Tide, and some sort of life without Scully.

 

William let go of Mulder's shirt and reached for the shiny paper. The baby crumpled one corner with his wet fist.

 

Mulder carried the baby on a tour of the musty apartment again. He stopped beside the rumpled bed. It didn't seem like more than a year had passed since that night, but it had.

 

"We can do this," he promised.  He bounced William gently, trying to sound more certain than he felt. "You and me, buddy - saving the world. Or, at least, what's left of it." 

 

****

 

There wasn't much to taking care of a baby, as long as Mulder didn't want to sleep or shower or do anything else with his life. Three blocks separated the park from Mulder's apartment, but NASA could launch the shuttle with less drama and preparation than it took him to leave the house at a set time with William.

 

"I thought something might have come up," Skinner said as Mulder arrived pushing a jogging stroller, twenty minutes late. "Or you'd changed your mind."

 

"No, just running behind."

 

"You're packing," Skinner commented as Mulder lifted William from the stroller, his jacket shifting to reveal the holster on the waistband of his jeans.

 

"A bottle, a spare pacifier, and a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson," he responded. He sighed and sat on the park bench. "There's an apocalypse and an afternoon nap on the way. Neither of us goes down without a fight."

  

Skinner chuckled half-heartedly. He leaned back and loosened his tie. "It's good to see you, Mulder.  How are you these days?"

 

"Incomplete," Mulder answered, rubbing the bottom of William's sock foot. "But in motion.  You know me - no set destination but spending gobs of money and making fairly good time."

 

Skinner nodded. "With a passenger," he said, gesturing to William. "I didn't realize he was living with you until I talked to Mrs. Scully."

 

"Yeah. For about a week. We're the dynamic duo, aren't we, buddy?"

 

William answered by laying his head against Mulder's chest and chewing his fist as he watched Skinner. His belly was full but his gums bothered him, making it hard for him to fall asleep.

 

"He's getting big.  I saw him the one time, before everything went down with the cult, but he's growing."

 

"He is a chub scout," Mulder answered. He stroked the dark chestnut wisps covering William's skull. "He's crawling. Babbling. Most babies don't do those things until they're about six months old, at the earliest."

 

"Maybe he's ahead of the curve."

 

"Maybe."

 

Mulder continued stroking. William's blue eyes blinked slower and slower, then closed as Morpheus took him, guiding him safely to the land of dreams.  The baby's hand slipped from his mouth, leaving a small, wet handprint on Mulder's shirt.

 

"He looks like her," Skinner said carefully, as if telling some family secret. "A little like you, but more like her."

 

"Yeah," Mulder answered softly. "He does." He looked up, watching the children play on the monkey bars on the other side of the park. "I talked to Mrs. Scully, too. Is there any paperwork?  Anything I need to clean out of the office? I'd rather Mrs. Scully didn't have to do it."

 

"Agent Reyes packed everything up.  I don't think Agent Doggett could bring himself to do it." Skinner gestured to the blue Gap shopping bag beside his feet. He reached inside the lapel of his suit coat and pulled out a familiar black rectangle. "By rights, I guess this should go to Mrs. Scully, but I thought you'd like to have it."

 

"Thanks," Mulder said quietly, taking it.  The leather of Scully's badge felt eerily warm, like the sidewalk after the remains of the day had passed. He fingered one worn edge and slipped the badge into the side pocket of the diaper bag, unopened.

 

"Her disappearance is still an open investigation," Skinner reminded him, sounding nearly convincing. "I'm giving it to you for safekeeping."

 

"I'll take good care of it."

 

Skinner leaned forward. He rested his elbows on his knees and interlaced his fingers.  He watched the children play, looking sadly thoughtful. The sun sifted down through the tree branches above them, and the air carried the smell of newly cut grass, the first mowing of the year.

 

"Kersh offered to reinstate you on the X-files," Skinner said after a few minutes. "To Scully, in January. They had a deal; if she'd cooperate with the undercover assignment for one afternoon so Doggett didn't blow his credibility with Ophiuchus, you would be reinstated.  Kersh must have said something to her while I was out of the room. I didn't know until Agent Doggett told me."

 

"How does Doggett know?"

 

"He and Scully talked before the raid on the compound. Once Ophiuchus found the bug and Scully realized they were in trouble, she told Doggett about the deal."

 

Mulder swallowed and resumed stroking William's head as a shish kabob skewer pierced most of his major internal organs.  He looked down, biting his lip and watching the baby's peaceful face. 

 

The Volvo and the Snuffaluffagus must not have been as convincing as he'd anticipated.

 

"Did she tell Agent Doggett anything else?" he asked eventually.

 

"Nothing he mentioned to me," Skinner answered. "If you would answer Agent Doggett's phone calls, you could ask him yourself."

 

"True," Mulder said noncommittally, and let the topic drop.

 

"I'll have the paperwork couriered to you tomorrow," Skinner said. "Her 401K, tax forms."

 

"Okay."

 

"The life insurance policy." Skinner sounded hesitant. "The death benefit is a pretty hefty chunk of change, and William is the primary beneficiary.  I know it's been a long time since you were on the FBI's payroll, Mulder."

 

"William's fine."

 

"She wouldn't touch yours, either."

 

The baby shifted against Mulder, settling firmly into sleep.

 

"Have you given any thought to coming back to the Bureau, with Kersh gone?"

 

"You mean in the five seconds a day I'm not changing William, feeding William, burping William, and looking over my shoulder for the latest alien or government menace to William?" He nodded to the baby against his chest. "Besides, I have a fulltime job."

 

Skinner smiled like it was a skill he'd forgotten. "They must be great.  Kids."

 

"So far, I've learned - depending what you feed them - you can pretty much make them poop any color you want."

  

Skinner glanced at William as if unsure if that was a joke. The AD cleared his throat and resumed watching the playground. "I have two agents on the X-files," he said after a several seconds of silence, "but I can put you back at the Investigative Support Unit.  You could work part-time at ISU, doing a few profiles a week. All consults. No travel. Full benefits for you and the baby. We'll try to send all the paranormal cases your way," he promised. "Including Agent Scully's abduction. Are you interested?"

 

"I was fired.  Clean out my desk, turn in my badge and parking pass, and get the hell out of the FBI, fired.  Can you reinstate me?"

   

Skinner tilted his head and pursed his lips. "As of this morning, I'm the Deputy Director of the FBI.  I can do whatever I damn well please. It's not a full workweek unless I can chew your ass, Agent Mulder."

 

****

 

Mulder fumbled in the darkness for the phone. He knocked over an empty baby bottle and a glass of water before he got the receiver to his ear.

 

"Yeah," he mumbled. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and squinted at his watch.  Two a.m. "Mulder.  Special Agent Mulder," he corrected.

 

Skinner said this new job would involve no travel; there'd been no promise against middle-of-the-night phone calls from overzealous field agents wanting to fax information about their cases so Mulder could render an opinion by dawn. This made the third call of the week; he and Skinner needed to renegotiate.

 

Alternately, Mrs. Scully might call again with some urgent tidbit of parenting wisdom she worried Mulder might not realize. Don't let children under three use power tools without the proper safety equipment. Anything smaller than a beach ball constituted a potential choking hazard. Was Mulder keeping the baby's teething rings in the freezer? Mrs. Scully could come over and show him the proper way to use a freezer if he needed her to.

 

"She's in Allentown," Frohike's voice said. "Allentown General Hospital."

 

For several long seconds, Mulder sat on the edge of the bed. He tried to put the words and breath together to respond. "A Jane Doe?" he asked as his heart thudded inside his bare chest.

 

"It's her, Mulder. Skinner's gonna be calling you in about two minutes."

 

"Okay."

 

"She's alive," Frohike added. "She's been in the hospital two weeks. I'm not sure why she wasn't entered into the NCIC database upon admission, but she wasn't. I'm still trying to get information on her condition, but she's alive."

 

Mulder's heart faltered, skipping a beat as demons whispered to him from the shadows. Perhaps The Gunmen and the hospital had it wrong, and it wasn't Scully. Maybe it was Scully, but not - a mindless thing had taken her place. Perhaps he'd found Scully to watch her die. Or he'd found her to watch her take her son and walk away.

 

"Are you still there, Mulder?" Frohike's voice asked uncertainly. "Mulder?"

 

"Yeah. I'm here. I'm leaving. Give me a few minutes' head start, and call Mrs. Scully."

 

Mulder replaced the receiver, his hand shaking.  He pulled the previous day's suit and shirt on, and shoved his feet into his loafers. He grabbed his wallet, keys, gun, badge, other gun, and the diaper bag. William didn't wake as Mulder picked him up and, a few minutes later, settled him into the car seat.

 

Alexandria was silent, its windows dark and its pavement scrubbed clean by the street sweepers, ready for morning. The car's headlights came on automatically as he started the engine, breaking the stillness. He put the Volvo in gear, pulled away from the curb, and headed toward Allentown, Pennsylvania.

 

****

 

"Dana Scully?" Mulder demanded at the hospital's security desk three hours later. He shifted William to one arm so he could flash his badge. "I'm Special Agent Mulder, FBI.  Special Agent Dana Scully - is she here? Where is she?  What room?"

 

The night-duty guard looked at him blearily, not comprehending the entire universe hinged on his response.

 

"Now!" Mulder barked, and woke the baby. "Where is she? The ICU?"

 

A newspaper and two coffee-stained magazines fell to the floor as the guard scrambled to reach the computer keyboard.

 

"The ICU?" Mulder repeated impatiently. While the guard struggled with the computer, Mulder headed for the elevator. He didn't need to ask directions.  It said something about his life, or lack thereof: in most hospitals in the continental United States, and two in Alaska, Mulder could locate the morgue and the Intensive Care Unit while blindfolded.

 

"Agent Mulder, FBI," he informed a woman as he passed the nurses' station, waving his badge in her general direction. "I'm looking for a patient named Dana Scully.  Where is she? What's her condition?"

 

The nurse chased Mulder as he stalked through the unit. His gaze moved rapidly from bed to bed, trying to match the body beneath the gauze and tubing and machines with the woman in his memory.

 

"Where is she?" he repeated loudly, over William's sleepy whimpers. "Dr. Dana Scully.  She's an FBI Agent and she's been exposed to a retrovirus. She needs anti-virals.  Tell her doctor to discontinue life support-"

 

"Agent Mulder-"

 

"Lower her body temperature. It slows the growth of the virus.  And-"

 

"Agent Mulder, we don't have a Dana Scully up here. She's been transferred.  You need to calm down."

 

He whirled around, looming over her. "Where is she? Who took her?  What have you done with her?"

 

"I-I-I'll have to check," the nurse stammered, stepping back. "She wasn't my patient."

 

"Check." He pointed to the computer at the nurses' station with his free hand. "Now."

 

He bounced William nervously while the woman pecked at the computer. After an eternity, she announced, "Room 7142. Neurology. Take the elevator to the seventh floor, turn left and-"

 

Mulder found a stairwell. His feet pounded up the metal steps. The bar on the door to the seventh floor didn't work the first time he pushed it, so he cursed and shoved it again. The fire door flew open. In the empty hallway, he looked around, searching for a direction.

 

His heart thundered and his footsteps echoed as he walked. He rushed past room 7136, and 7138 and 7140. The wide wooden door to 7142 was closed. He took a breath. His hand shook as he pushed the latch and entered into the dim room.

 

A small, auburn-haired woman lay in the bed with her face turned away from him and toward the window. In the dim room, her hair looked the right shade. The hand resting on the hospital sheet was familiar. The shape of her ear, the line of her neck, the curve of her shoulder... Mulder stopped, feeling a strange lightness of being. "Scully?"

 

After a few seconds, she turned her head and looked at him sleepily.  He felt her presence the same way he felt the amniotic pull of the ocean.

  

"Oh my God," he murmured, half in relief, half in prayer. "Scully- Dana... Hi." He exhaled shakily.

 

"Hello," she responded carefully. She pushed herself higher in the bed. "I was asleep."

 

An awkward pause followed. Mulder felt afraid to move, as though if he blinked or looked away the spell would break and she would vanish. Time stretched out like a patient anesthetized on an operating table, and he tried to remember to breathe.

 

He wanted to touch her, to put his arms around her and reassure himself, but he didn't.  He wanted to put his mouth on hers and melt into her like hot wax, but he didn't.  He wanted to put William in her arms and have all be right with the world, but he didn't. 

 

Mulder bounced the unhappy baby again and tried to think of something to say.  His brain filled with a sea of words and his heart overflowed, but his mouth wouldn't cooperate.

 

She pulled the blanket higher and pushed her hair back from her face as if trying to make herself presentable. She pressed a button on the bed. The soft yellow light above her headboard came on, pushing back the darkness.

 

"Your mother's coming," he offered. "I had someone call her. She'll be here in an hour."

 

She nodded uneasily and gave him the polite smile she reserved for strangers. "Thank you."

 

Mulder waited for her to show any sign of recognition, but she didn't.

 

"Scully-" he started. "It's Mulder. Do- Do you know who I am?" he asked hesitantly.

 

"Agent Mulder," she answered. "The profiler.  I read your monograph on Monty Props a few years ago. It was excellent," she added, seeming self-conscious. "Spooky, even."

 

He stared at her, still waiting for the punch line. If she was paying him back, the joke wasn't funny. 

 

She tried to smile but didn't. His heart started to pound again.  Monty Props.  He'd written that profile in 1988, years before the FBI assigned Scully as his partner.

 

Her smile was more genuine as she shifted her gaze to William, who squirmed and whimpered unhappily. "Is this your son, Agent Mulder?"

 

"Yes," he heard himself answer.

 

****

  

End: Book III


	2. Chapter 2

Book IV: We've secretly replaced their regular lives with Folger's Crystals

 

****

 

According to the doctors, Mulder constituted a scientific marvel. The eighth wonder of the medical world, they claimed, which made him afraid to ask about the first seven. He couldn't imagine topping his diagnosis: death, in partial remission.

 

Mulder drifted through the first week, cocooned by unconsciousness as his body healed and his deadened senses reawakened. He relied on Scully as his anchor to the world of the living. If her voice said to open his eyes or respond to a question, he did, but usually he retreated to a warm, smooth, soundless void, and let life flow around rather than through him. 

 

A nurse checked him over. Mulder heard her suggest Scully go home, rest, and come back in the morning. Scully must not have responded, because the nurse reiterated, citing hospital policy and the importance of Scully taking care of herself. Instead of answering, Scully remained in the chair beside Mulder's bed. She held his hand and studiously ignored the woman's unsolicited advice. This nurse made the thousandth helpful medical person to suggest she leave. Each time, Scully either ignored them or - if they insisted – employed some combination of her badge, gun, and medical license, and dared them to try to make her move. The Rock of Gibraltar seem yielding by comparison.

 

Mulder opened his eyes. The nurse stood at the foot of his bed with her hands on her hips. Beside his bed, Scully's profile remained silent and defiant.

  

After an awkward silence, the nurse rechecked his IV with a sour look on her face. After a defeated huff, she left, crisply closing the door after her.

 

Scully gave his hand a gentle victory squeeze.

 

He squeezed back. One battle down. The rest of their lives - and the coming apocalypse - to go.

 

"How long?" he asked, his voice rusty from disuse.

 

The television mounted to the ceiling was tuned to CNN, volume low. Ice shifted as it melted in the pitcher on his bedside table. His eyes were still sensitive to light, so she kept the room dim, and the closed blinds gave no clue to the outside world.

 

He cleared his throat and tried again. "How long was I gone?"

 

"You were abducted in April," Scully answered. "We found you in August. It's November. You've been in the hospital about two weeks."

 

Mulder stared at the ceiling. Seven months had passed since they'd walked beneath a bower of white and pink cherry blossoms and kissed in front of the Jefferson Memorial. It was impossible. Unreal. Like Time blinked and passed him by, unseeing.

 

"I missed the World Series."

 

"And the Olympics. A presidential election."

 

"Who-" he started.

 

"The Yankees over the Mets in game five."

 

He turned his head toward her forlornly. "Oh God. The first subway series since 1956, and I had to be dead."

 

She reached up, stroking his face. Her fingers felt cool and whispered against the rough stubble and scabs on his cheek. She touched him often, as if reassuring herself he was real. "I have the ‘Sports Illustrated’ Special Edition. I saw an old copy in the lobby, so I borrowed it. It's dog-eared and coffee-stained, but it should tide you over until the highlights video is out."

 

"Scully?"

 

"Hum?" She eased up from her chair and massaged the small of her back.

 

"Marry me."

 

She didn't respond, but he didn't expect her to. As a rule, Scully overlooked romantic overtures and heartfelt confessions sponsored by Federal Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

 

She did glance over her shoulder and smile, then walked away from his bed. As she turned back with the magazine, Mulder blinked, thinking his eyes played tricks on him.

 

"Uh, Scully," he said slowly, staring at her. "Are you- Oh my God..."

 

She looked down at the round outline of her abdomen, seeming uncomfortable.

 

"Oh my God," he repeated. "You're- How did-"

 

Mulder waited for her to say something, to explain. She didn't.

 

"Scully..."

 

One of the monitors beside his bed beeped. Nurse Sourpuss's shoes squeaked down the hall. An ambulance siren wailed in the distance.

 

Mulder swallowed. "Looks like I missed something even more important," he said awkwardly.

 

Scully nodded.

 

He searched the empty expanses of his brain, trying to think of something appropriate to say. The last time they'd had sex was the "wild and passionate and perhaps ill-conceived" night in late March; this was November. The math worked out for her to be so pregnant. From her expression, Mulder couldn't tell if he should offer congratulations, apologies, or pretend he hadn't noticed.

 

"When were you planning to tell me?"

 

"I-I... I wanted to wait until you were awake enough to talk about it."

 

He pushed himself higher in the bed so he was semi-sitting. He ignored the protest from the muscles of his arms, the wounds on his wrists, and the dull pain from the IV in the back of his hand. "I'm awake."

  

She approached slowly and resumed her seat in the chair beside his bed. "I've given a lot of thought about what to say to you. A lot of thought."

 

He nodded.

 

She took a breath and opened her mouth wordlessly.

 

The television droned on, offering the headlines. A metal cart clattered as it passed outside.

 

"Do you want this?" he asked with the same tone he used to ask if she wanted his green Jell-O with diced pears.

 

"Yes," she said quickly.

 

Mulder nodded again.

 

"I found out right after you were abducted." Again, she looked at her belly rather than him. "I'm thirty-five weeks, which means I have about five weeks to go.” She spoke faster. “I worried at first - about how I was able to conceive, why I was able to conceive - but I've had every test, and they all indicate he's normal. Healthy."

 

"He?"

 

"Or she. I don't know. I don’t want to know. Mulder-" She ran out of words. "I'm fine. My baby's fine."

 

"Your baby?" he echoed. She hadn't made any move indicating it was all right for him to touch her belly, and she certainly hadn't been over-eager to share the news. To him, the words "you're going to be a father" should have followed "you're not dead anymore" in the important news hierarchy. They hadn't. 

 

"He's fine," she assured him. "You don't need to worry about us."

 

"Did, did you plan this? Getting pregnant? Is that why... With me?" He stopped, embarrassed for asking. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. "This is- I'm not sure what to say. Or do."

 

"You don't have to say or do anything. I want you to rest and get better."

 

He looked at the bland ceiling again. Scully was mistaken. He should have some response. For every action, there was an equal and opposite reaction. Against every law of science, he lay newly undead in a hospital bed and beside him, his barren partner was five weeks from giving birth to their baby. Her baby. He should feel something. Excited. Terrified.

 

His physical body was a muted ache, and his resurrected heart felt empty.  

 

He closed his eyes. Mulder felt her drape a blanket over him and smooth his hair back from his face before she sat down. Magazine pages rustled, and her hand took his as she cleared her throat and began to read about the New York Yankees' World Series victory.

 

****

  

His memories of being on the ship came back in blinding flashes, like jolts of electricity through his body: the pain, the helplessness, the certainty he would die. Pleading with Them to leave him alone, but knowing it did no good. Screaming for Scully to help him but knowing she wouldn't come.

 

According to Scully and the doctor, Mulder was doing remarkably well. Making medical history. An amazing recovery. He didn't have the heart or energy to tell either of them differently.

 

Mulder found a safe place deep inside himself and stayed there. He treated the world as a Brazilian soccer match - novel, but not directly related to him, too difficult to understand, and happening too fast to keep track of.

 

Mulder asked why he still had an apartment, and Scully answered something about the lease not being up and not getting around to moving his things. Those were semi-plausible lies until he saw the fish tank. He still had a furnished apartment, with his suits hanging in the closet and his razor hanging in the bathroom, and he still had live fish. She'd kept the stage exactly as Mulder left it; all he had to do was step on and play his part. And he would, if someone would feed him his lines and promise he wouldn't have to feel anything that might hurt.

 

He lay on top of the covers on his bed with one arm curled under his pillow as he stared at the television. There was a game on. He didn't know the score. Or the teams. Or the sport.

 

"Are you still awake?" Scully asked from the bedroom doorway, and he nodded. "There's plenty of food in the refrigerator. Casseroles, lasagna... I labeled everything. It's all heat and eat. There's fresh cereal, soup, sandwich stuff. Whatever you're in the mood for."

 

He nodded again and patted the mattress in search of the remote control.

 

"I put your prescription bottles on the counter. Make sure to take the antibiotics with plenty of water and finish the full course." 

 

Mulder's head moved against the pillowcase as he nodded.

 

She approached his bed, walking slowly and leaning back to keep her balance. "I thought you were going to rest. Take a nap. Your body's still healing, Mulder. You need to take care of yourself."

 

"I'm okay," he lied without looking away from the television.  He pressed the button on the remote and watched the channels flash past until Gregory Peck's face appeared the screen. "‘Roman Holiday,’" he said off-hand, like it was an observation, not an invitation to stay and watch the movie with him.

 

She leaned over her belly to feel his forehead, and she switched into doctor mode. "Are you feeling all right, Mulder? Sit up and let me look at you."

 

"I'm okay, Scully. You can go home. If you want."

 

"I'm a medical doctor.  Sit up."

 

He sighed, swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and submitted.  As she gave him the medical once-over, he stared past her, at the old movie on the television. On the screen, a mortified Audrey Hepburn woke in Gregory Peck's bed the morning after, facing the repercussions of her ill-considered actions the night before.

 

Stolen moments, ships in the night, star-crossed lovers, never-meant-to-be... Having happiness land in the palm of your hand like a butterfly, and being perfectly still, afraid to breathe, to watch helplessly as it flitted away again. He hated this movie. It was loneliness and quiet desperation disguised as a fairytale. He stared at it anyway, like a dog watching the dryer spin.

 

"Mulder, I don't see any signs of infection. Let me see the incision-"

 

She pulled the neck of his T-shirt lower and, caught off-guard, he jerked back as she touched the scar. Inside his head, Mulder heard the silent, hollow sound of the space ship, and the distant whine of the saw.  He was there again: his wrists pinned down, and hooks pierced his cheeks, keeping his head still. There was no getting away, no help, and no way to fight back.

 

The searing pain didn't come. The mechanical whine faded. The movie dialogue and Scully's worried voice returned.

 

"Mulder?"

 

He realized he cowered, one arm shielding his face from some invisible machine.

 

"I didn't mean to startle you," she said gently. "I wanted to make sure the incision's healing. I shouldn't have been so brusque. I'm sorry; I wasn't thinking. Are you all right?"

 

His heart thundered in his ears as he lowered his hand. He exhaled and nodded. "I'm okay."

 

"I'm not going to hurt you. No one's going to hurt you. You're safe."

 

He nodded again.

  

She waited, watching him closely. 

 

"You surprised me," he mumbled.

 

She continued waiting. He wasn't fooling her, and he knew it.

 

"It's nothing. Standard fight or flight." He pulled the neck of his T-shirt down, giving her a glimpse of the red scar. "It's fine, okay? I'm tired."

 

"Okay," she conceded softly. "Lie down. I'll bring you some water. You need plenty of fluids."

 

He sank down onto his pillow again, watching as she waddled away. Ice cubes rattled, a faucet ran, and she returned, carrying a glass of ice water, which she sat on his night stand. He thanked her, focusing on the boob tube and ignoring her scrutiny. After a moment, she maneuvered awkwardly down on the edge of the mattress, careful not to touch him.

 

"You're remembering, aren't you?" she asked as if afraid to hear the answer. "I remember parts of my abduction, but you remember exactly what They did, don't you?"

 

Mulder hesitated, but nodded. As he did, Scully looked like an arrow pierced her heart. She raised her hand, paused to make sure he saw it, and stroked his battered cheek as she bit her lower lip white. "I searched for you. I did. I went to Arizona, tracking the ship that took you. I knew the ship was in the desert, somewhere. I knew They were hurting you; I could hear you screaming for me, but I couldn't find you... There was a bounty hunter- I almost lost the baby, and by the time I got out of the hospital, the ship was gone. It was too late. I'm so sorry, Mulder."

 

He stared at her numbly. He knew she reached out to him, wanting reassurance, but her words passed through him like he was a sieve. A façade. Something appearing solid and real, but not.

 

He wanted to be her Mulder again. To crack wise and smirk and wear his heart on his sleeve and love her like she deserved to be loved. She'd kept this apartment for that man, not the empty, shell-shocked stranger she'd brought home from the hospital. Logically, he knew what Post-traumatic Stress was, but... She'd brought his body back, but he wondered if his soul stayed among the dead.

 

"I was so afraid I'd never see you again," she admitted hoarsely, putting one hand on her belly.

 

"Here I am."

 

Her eyes shone with tears.

 

He wanted to wipe her tears away, put his arms around her, and whisper the words to make it all better. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her. He felt grateful to her. He needed time to make sense of what happened to him, and process all that happened in his absence.

 

Mulder's lips parted, but no sound escaped the void inside him. He stared at her face helplessly, and at her swollen abdomen.

 

Four more weeks.

 

He wanted to tell her, regardless of how or why it had come to be, he'd be there for this baby. He'd love it because it was part of her, and she could stop acting apologetic for getting pregnant without his expressed written permission.

 

As her soft fingertips traced his face and ran through his hair, he looked up at her and asked dully, "Are we getting married?"

 

She inhaled, and the stroking stopped. "Mulder," she started shakily. "I- Oh my God."

 

"I know it sounds old-fashioned, but you're gonna have a baby, Scully."

 

She swallowed. "Would you be asking me if I wasn't?"

 

"What I said earlier? I don't know where I fit in? I don't. I need you to tell me. I love you," he said hollowly. "I wanna do the right thing. I'm not sure what the right thing is."

 

She blinked rapidly and looked away. "Please don't do this to me, Mulder. You're here, you're alive; that's enough. Don't do this."

 

He sat up, catching her hand as she pulled it away. It felt warm and steady, like a human lifeline. "Do what? Scully, I'm-"

 

"I know you're serious. I know this isn't one of your standard post-concussive proposals. But I also know why you're asking."

 

The first tear spilled out of the corner of her eye and made a glistening path down her cheek.

 

"I-I-I didn't mean to make you cry."

 

"Hormones," she said, and sniffed. "Some days, I cry at dog food commercials."

 

Mulder licked his lips nervously. On impulse, he leaned forward and pressed them to hers. He put his hand on her cheek, stroking away the tear track with his thumb. His mouth brushed hers as he whispered he was sorry. Warmth flowed from her skin to his, and he moved closer, craving more. He kissed her again. His body came alive as if a wave passed over it, washed away the memories of the ship, and left him clean.

 

"Mulder," she murmured. She pressed her forehead to his. "Oh God. You're here."

 

"I'm here." He ran one hand through her hair and felt the silk strands slip between his fingers. His other hand found her breast, exploring the new fullness. "I love you."

 

"You were in my dreams," she whispered as he kissed down her neck. "Vivid, lucid, fantastic dreams. I'd close my eyes and you'd be waiting for me. Every night you'd be there. You'd be waiting for me in our old office or in that dive bar you like. You'd be on a beach in Cape Cod or in a fancy British hotel room – places from your memory I hadn't been. One night, you weren't waiting, and I knew..." Her throat convulsed under his lips. "I knew what we'd find in Montana."

 

"Shush. I'm here."

 

She put her arms around his neck, holding him as close as she could. He wanted to be closer. He wanted to press his skin against hers and let the life inside her fill him, the way his body filled hers to create this baby.

 

"Take this off," he asked, gathering up her sweater and preparing to pull it over her head.

 

"Wait," she whispered breathlessly, and pulled back. "We, we can't. You're not up to this."

 

"I think I am," he said, starting to guide her hand to his groin.

 

"I'm pregnant."

 

"I don't care."

 

"Mulder, I can't. I would. But I can't. I know said the baby's fine, but there have been some problems. I-I can't do this."

 

"It could hurt the baby?"

 

She nodded and licked her kiss-swollen lips. 

 

Mulder couldn't tell if she told the truth or not. Regardless, he sat back against the headboard, embarrassed. "Sorry."

 

She studied her lap intently with her face flushed and her hair mussed.  The light from the television played across her skin, and the movie's characters bantered in the background. Mulder watched her for a moment, looking for some cue, but went back to staring at the TV screen.

 

"We can't catch a break, can we, Scully?"

 

She tucked her hair behind her ears without looking at him. "You do need to rest," she said, and moved to get up. "I'll let you rest."

 

"Will you stay?"

 

"Of course. I'll be in the next room. I want to-"

 

"Will you stay with me?"

 

She studied him sadly before she toed off her shoes. She lowered herself onto the mattress, with her head on the other pillow.  The handful of times she'd spent the night at his apartment, it had been her pillow. He could have sworn, after so many months, the pillow still smelled like her.

 

As they lay there, Scully watched the television, and he watched the back of her head.  On the screen Gregory Peck and Aubrey Hepburn embarked on a tour of 1950's Rome, savoring life and teetering on the edge of falling in love. She was a runaway princess in search of adventure; he was an average guy - a combination doomed from the start. At the end of their day together, they return to their lives with fond memories of their secret time together. 

 

"Peck's miscast," he commented, searching for something to say. "Cary Grant would have been perfect. Grant could have salvaged this."

 

"I like it the way it is," she said sleepily. "It's a fairytale, Mulder."

 

He scooted closer, fitting the front of his body against the back of hers.  The few nights they'd spent together, this was how they'd slept - curled together like spoons.  He started to rest his hand on her belly, but instead carefully laid it on her hip. 

 

She didn't tell him to move it.

 

"A fairytale with an unhappy ending," he responded, and raised his head to kiss her cheek.

 

"'Casablanca,' 'Dr. Zhivago,' 'Romeo and Juliet.' The best love stories don't have happy endings," she reminded him.

 

"Right," he mumbled. Mulder returned his head to his own pillow and closed his eyes.

 

****

 

She believed the spaceship on the beach in Africa had the power to heal, and exposure to it healed the damage done to her reproductive system during her abduction.  She believed her baby was the product of their night together in March - a human child conceived by two human parents. 

 

Scully painted her spare bedroom pale yellow and put up a Winnie the Pooh border.  She bought baby clothes and a rocking chair and a bassinet. Mulder arrived to put the crib together, but he discovered she'd done it herself, unable to wait.  Afterward, she stood in the doorway and looked at the ready nursery, smiling as she stroked her heavy abdomen.  She was as happy as he'd ever seen her.

 

Despite the mounting evidence, Mulder couldn't take that happiness from her. He couldn't tell her his fears. The baby she carried was the product of a laboratory - yet another child born to die or further an agenda.  He believed its conception was a miracle, but not the type she desperately wanted it to be.

 

****

  

Mulder heard Scully say his name once, but in a tone suggesting a third repetition. He turned, put on his grin, and raised his brows in an expression of rapt interest.

 

"Are you in there?" she asked.

 

"Right here."

 

She reached for his hand, needing help to get to her feet.  Around them, the other couples got up, dusted off their clothes, and collected their pillows. Some chatted, and some exchanged e-mail addresses and promised baby photos. The instructor made the rounds, thanking them for coming.  The last Lamaze class had ended; they should know what to do.

 

"Class is over. We can go," Scully told him as she rolled the kinks out of her back.

 

"Oh. Okay." He followed her to the car, dutifully carrying their pillows.

 

"Feed me, Mulder," she requested. They stopped beside the passenger door, and he bumped into her belly, forgetting it would be between them.

 

After she told him what she wanted, he responded, "You're not serious?"

 

"It's called a craving," Scully informed him, fastening her seatbelt. "It's perfectly normal. There's one on the way home."

 

Mulder started the engine as he shook his head in disbelief. "Okay. Taco Hell it is."

 

"With extra sour cream," she added a few minutes later, as he stood in line and she maneuvered her belly into an empty booth. 

 

It was kiddie night at Taco Hell.  The harried mother of an unruly half-dozen waited in line in front of him, trying to get her brood to agree on what they wanted.  Behind him, a father waited with a young son, going over the boy's preliminary demands for Santa.  A preteen girl tried to order with a coupon the clerk didn't recognize, so they had to get a manager.  As Mulder waited, all the voices and faces started to merge into an LSD-like neon jabber, getting progressively louder and closer.

 

The manager's keys clattered as she dropped them on the counter. Mulder flinched.  One of Mother Hubbard's gaggle shrieked as her brother put ice down the back of her coat, and a refrigerator door in the kitchen closed, sounding eerily alien.  The drive-thru speaker squealed and crackled.  A roll of quarters smacked against the register drawer, and the boy behind Mulder swung from the metal railing like a monkey.

 

He couldn't do this.

 

"You okay, mister?" the man behind him asked. Mulder blinked at him stupidly.  The man gestured to the register. "She wants to take your order.  Tell her what you want."

 

Mulder saw Scully watching him from across the restaurant, looking worried.

 

Mulder heard his voice ordering. He kept pace with his orange plastic tray and was surprised someone put food on it.

  

"What did you get?" Scully asked as he arrived at their booth and slid in across from her. 

 

He looked at the wrappers, trying to remember. He’d ordered nothing. "I ate earlier," he lied.

 

Mother Hubbard's brood fought over their food, and she tried to referee without success.  One boy dropped a packet to the floor and stomped on it, sending a graceful arc of sauce several feet in the air.  He got his butt smacked, and was left to pout, scream he hated his mother, wasn't eating, and would rather starve to death.

 

The young father and son sat at a nearby table, with the son complaining his taco shell was broken in two, making it inedible.  The father tried to reason, but the boy sat, crossed his arms, shoved out his lower lip, and refused.  In desperation, the father carried the taco back to the counter and waited to exchange it.

 

Mulder couldn't do this.  Mulder's father would have slapped both boys, and Mulder's hand itched to do the same. There would be no reasoning, no cajoling. "Your mother cooked this dinner.  Sit down, shut up, and eat, damn it," he wanted to scream, like his father had a thousand times.

 

"Mulder," Scully said uncertainly, and the world started closing in.

 

If her child was normal, as she believed, he couldn't be a father to it.  Not a good one. He couldn't even stand her yappy little dog. If her child turned out to be some experiment, he couldn't watch her go through that again, either. He couldn't go through it again. He couldn't be strong for Scully while he watched another child suffer and die.

 

"I can't do this.  I'm sorry.  I-I can't," he stammered. He barely got the words out before he stood and rushed outside, into the cold, desperate for silence and air.

 

He leaned against the rear bumper of her car, too embarrassed to meet her eyes as she emerged from the restaurant. She waited for a minivan to pass as she shrugged on her coat. The driver saw her belly and waved for her to cross in front of him as he gave Mulder a 'what asshole can't wait for a pregnant woman' look.

 

"I'm sorry," Mulder repeated over the noise and exhaust from the cars. "I love you. You know I do. I'd do anything for you, and I'm trying, but I can't-"

 

"It's okay," she assured him. "You've been through a lot. Take some time."

 

"I don't have time," he yelled at her. "I have two weeks!"

 

The minivan driver rolled down the passenger-side window, pointedly watching Mulder yell at a pregnant woman.

 

Scully took Mulder's hand, steadying it as it shook. 

 

"I want this for you.  This baby," Mulder mumbled. He watched a plastic soda cup roll by, propelled by the unforgiving winter wind. "I swear I do, but-"

 

"But you don't want it for you," she finished.

 

Mulder bit his lip and stared at the cold asphalt. "I'm trying. I want to want it. Regardless, I want to be there for you. It's so fast, Scully. I need someone to stop the world and let me get off, 'cause otherwise I'm gonna jump."

 

"Don't jump." She took a breath as if trying to find the right words. "I know you got no choice in this. I know it's not what we planned, or what you agreed to. If you'd been here, we could have decided together, but you were gone, and dead, Mulder, and I had to make a choice alone. About what I wanted. I want this baby."

 

He glanced at her from underneath his eyebrows. "And now I'm back."

 

She smiled sadly. "Now you're back. I don't want you to feel like you have to change because of a choice I made. You can't be something you're not, and I don't want you to be. It's not fair to you, and it's not what I expect."

 

To Mulder, her assessment of the situation was bizarre. She didn't get to choose his level of commitment or attachment to his child. This wasn't a 'what's a little sperm between friends' contractual agreement. He loved her and they had a baby conceived through the time-honored wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am method of procreation. Planned or unplanned, he refused to walk away from his responsibility to this child, yet she was determined to absolve him of all accountability.  If this was their baby, her logic was like saying they'd always have Paris when they'd missed the train to Paris.

 

She wouldn't even consider the possibility the baby was something other than a gift from God. After all the nightmares they'd been through, perhaps in two weeks, a new one began.

 

Mulder started to say something but looked at her. She had one hand on her belly, and the clear December sky framed her expectant face.

 

So he said nothing.

 

****

 

Until Scully approached Mulder about in vitro, he hadn't given thought to having children. In the abstract sense, he liked the idea, though he'd never felt an overwhelming desire to be a father. During their blink-and-you'll-miss-it marriage, Diana hadn't wanted kids. A baby would have derailed her career, and she disliked the stickiness and clutter of parenthood. After the divorce, he'd let the X-files take over his life and, if busybodies asked, said his work wasn't conducive to a family.

 

Scully wanted a baby, though. And, as floored and humbled as he'd been by her request, he wanted her to have it. Her Baby. Mulder had several misgivings, but the greatest was the potential danger to the child if it could be linked to him. In the scenario she proposed, his contribution would be anonymous, limited to DNA and being her best friend. His name wouldn't appear in the medical records or on the birth certificate.  Mulder would be there if she needed him, but not as the baby's father.  People could speculate, but, for the child's sake, there'd be no proof.

 

When Scully said it, looking at him with those infinite blue eyes, it sounded logical. Practical, even, if Mulder didn't think too hard.

 

When conception involved a specimen cup, his greatest fear was someday, someone running a DNA analysis and discovering Mulder was its biological father.

 

His greatest fear now was someone discovering he wasn't.

 

Mulder wanted to believe her baby was normal, but he couldn't. He saw fake ultrasounds and amniocenteses and lab results. Dr. Parenti had freak show fetuses and did God-knows-what to Scully for the first part of her pregnancy. She had baby nurses giving her mystery pills and super-soldiers after her, and Krycek saying her child couldn't come to term.

 

For her sake, Mulder put his hand on her belly and tried to pretend, but whatever he felt moving inside her body wasn't normal.

 

His instincts believed otherwise. On a cognitive level, he understood this was another violation of her body, the product of a test tube and medical rape. Eight million years of male biology, however, failed to agree. He'd made love to this woman, he loved this woman, and she was about to give birth. Each time he looked at her heavy belly, his sense of possessiveness and protectiveness grew. He wasn't content with a guardian angel; he wanted to surround her and her baby with a well-armed guardian army. Whatever life grew inside her, it was theirs, damn it - or at least, it should be - and he'd die to make sure she got to keep it.  

 

Mulder squinted into the headlights and shoved his way through a sea of creatures who looked human but weren't. They milled around him - dozens, maybe hundreds of super-soldiers, swarming the rural Georgia town like hungry insects.  He screamed, demanding to know where Scully was and what they'd done to her. He got no response.  They moved past him, emotionless machines oblivious to anything but their purpose. To find and destroy Scully's baby.

 

He found Agent Reyes' rental car. The keys were in the ignition and the hood felt cold. He scanned the run-down buildings, looking for a safe house - someplace Reyes and Scully could have hidden or barricaded themselves inside. He saw a ghost town populated with the alien ghosts of what once were men and women.

 

Mulder screamed Scully's name. He heard his hoarse voice echo off the wooden buildings, mocking him, until it faded to nothing. As he opened his mouth the yell again, Reyes called to him from the doorway of one of the old buildings. She said Scully needed to get to a hospital.

 

Not Scully and the baby. Scully.

 

He watched helplessly as the super-soldiers moved away. They'd come for the baby and, if they were leaving, they'd gotten it.

 

He was too late.

 

"Mulder," Agent Reyes repeated urgently.

 

He was too late.

 

"Mulder!" 

 

His heart restarted, beating out of habit and propelling his body forward. He stepped past Reyes and into a room lit by a few candles.  Dusty sheets covered most of the furniture, and cobwebs covered the rest.  The windowpanes not broken out were covered with yellow grime. The whole building looked like something time and modern hygiene forgot.

 

"This is where you brought her?" he yelled at Reyes over the turmoil of helicopter blades and car engines outside. "You were supposed to protect her. What the hell is wrong with you?"

 

"They came for the baby. The super-soldiers. They waited while she gave birth,” Reyes tried to explain. “I couldn't stop them-"

 

"Where is she?" he demanded.

 

Reyes pointed.

 

Scully lay alone on a small bed near a wood-burning stove, looking pale and disoriented. Her eyes were glassy. Perspiration had soaked her hair and the T-shirt she wore, and she had tear tracks down her cheeks.

 

"Mulder..." she mumbled.

 

"I'm here. I'm gonna get you out of here," he promised. He gathered her up, sheets and all, as she made a token effort at putting her arms around his neck. "There's a chopper outside; I'm gonna get you to a hospital. It's going to be okay."

 

He noticed a wadded pile of bloody towels on the floor beside the bed, and a flat place where her belly had been two days ago.

 

He didn't think it would be okay ever again.

 

"There's blood," he called to Reyes, noticing the bed after he picked Scully up.

 

In the shadows, Reyes hurriedly wrapped something in a towel, preparing to put it in a trash bag. Mulder got a glimpse of dark, wet tissue. He'd assumed the super-soldiers took the baby, but perhaps they hadn't. Perhaps they'd accomplished their mission and left the body behind. He froze, holding Scully and staring at it, trying to see some identifiable form.

 

"Stop," he ordered loudly, getting his mouth to function again. In the FBI, he'd seen too many tiny corpses wrapped in garbage bags. "It's not trash. Don't put it in the trash."

 

"It's the placenta. She said to save it, to let the doctor examine it. I don't know what else to do with it." She paused. "Do you want to see it?"

 

He shook his head. He didn't want to see it, and he didn't want it near him. So long as it wasn't the baby, he didn't care what she did with it.

 

Scully felt like deadweight in his arms.  As he shifted her, trying to get a secure grip, she mumbled his name.

 

"I'm here.  It's okay," he assured her.

 

Outside, the last of the cars disappeared over the horizon, leaving the abandoned town dark except for the lights on the helicopter.  Mulder ducked to avoid the spinning blades, and maneuvered Scully into the helicopter. There were seats, but he sat on the floor and pulled Scully onto his lap. Her head lolled against his shoulder. She started to shiver.  He pulled the sheet around her, took off his jacket, and draped it over her, too.

 

"Hospital," he yelled at the pilot, who stared at Scully, seeming dumbfounded. "Now!"

 

"What happened to her?"

 

"Nothing, compared to what'll happen to you if you don't get her to a doctor," Mulder threatened.

 

"Go," Reyes ordered. She climbed in and slammed the chopper door one-handed.

 

"This isn't a Medevac," the pilot argued. "It's a short-range charter."

 

Mulder shifted, pulled the Glock 9mm from the holster on his hip, and pointed it at the pilot.  The man continued staring at them. Mulder pulled the hammer back to half-cock for emphasis.

 

"Now it's a Medevac," Mulder informed him.

 

The pilot's Adam's apple bobbed and he turned to the controls.  The engine whined, and the helicopter rose into the cool blackness, leaving Democrat Hot Springs, Georgia, behind.

 

"It's gonna be okay," Mulder assured her again. He lowered the pistol and tucked his jacket tighter around her shoulders. "Hold on."

 

In the cockpit, the nervous pilot was on the radio, explaining the situation to the closest hospital and asking permission to land. Every few minutes, he'd glance back at Scully, at Mulder, and push the chopper faster.

 

Scully's teeth started to chatter, and she shivered violently.  Mulder shifted her, trying to make her more comfortable. He saw blood on the hand he'd had beneath her legs.

 

"Hold on, Scully," he begged, and pushed her wet hair back from her face.  He kissed her forehead and held her against him tightly. "Find something to keep her warm," he commanded Agent Reyes. "Is there a blanket? What's that?" He reached for the bunch of towels she'd brought in addition to the plastic bag containing the placenta.

 

"It's the baby," she answered.

 

He blinked, stunned, and lowered his hand.

 

"Do you want to see him?" She started to unfold the towels she held.

 

"No," he said quickly. No, he didn't want to see a dead baby. He didn't want Scully to see it, either. "No, keep it over there."

 

Reyes furrowed her brow and leaned forward. "Skin to skin contact after birth is important to the bonding process. If you would hold him-"

 

"I said no."

  

She sat back, bouncing the bundle disapprovingly.

 

He stared at the towels for a moment, and looked down, watching Scully instead.  She opened her eyes, trying to focus on him.  He kissed her forehead again and her cool lips and rested his face against hers.

 

"...came for the baby, Mulder," she mumbled.

 

"I know They did. I tried to stop them. I tried," he answered. A tear slipped from the corner of his eye and trickled along his cheek until it met her skin. "I'm so sorry."

 

"Twenty minutes," the pilot called. "Stay cool back there, okay?"

 

The helicopter sliced through the night, its rotors whirling above them and its engine droning. Far below, a few cold lights littered the blackness.  A truck stop or a small cluster of farmhouses. It looked like someplace innocent and warm and normal. Someplace they weren't.

  

Mulder kept his head down, his arms around Scully, and his eyes squeezed shut, trying to block out the rest of the world. He felt her chest rising as she breathed, and the slow, patient thud of her heart beneath her breast. "I love you," he said hoarsely. "So much, baby."

 

"...a boy," she said, barely audible in the noisy helicopter.

 

"Agent Reyes told me." He cupped the back of her head with his palm, covering it protectively.

 

"He's beautiful, Mulder," she mumbled, starting to fade in and out of consciousness. "Did you see him?"

 

"Yeah," he lied.  He raised his head and stroked her hair as he watched the endless stars swirl past the window. "It's gonna be okay," he repeated numbly. "We're gonna be okay," he promised.

 

****

 

Despite Skinner's wheeling and dealing, it took most of the next day to convince the chopper pilot to drop the charges against Mulder, and longer to convince the local police. For an FBI Agent, waving a gun around and demanding a private helicopter take him where he wanted to go was 'commandeering.' The police who'd been waiting for Mulder at the hospital called it 'hijacking.'

 

Whatever Skinner offered or threatened, after a day, the incensed pilot relented. The police returned Mulder's jacket, wristwatch, wallet, gun, and shoelaces, and let him walk out of the station, alone, and fade into a cold Georgia night.

 

Skinner also finagled a seat for him on a redeye flight to DC, so Mulder sat wedged in with the other travelers and stared out the window of the plane. As they circled Washington National Airport, dawn broke, a violet thief stealing across the horizon.  The plane lurched as it touched down, bounced twice on the runway, and rolled to a stop.

 

Three days ago he'd raced to catch a flight at the same gate, desperate to reach Scully before someone or something else did. Seventy-two hours later, he'd come full circle, returning to the same terminal, the same plasticized woman behind the counter, and the same bleak December sky hanging lethargically over Washington.

 

In three days, nothing and everything changed.

 

He didn't know how he felt about Scully's baby. If he felt about it. The more he searched his soul for an identifiable emotion, the more he felt nothing. Empty. Like life held its breath, waiting for a signal before it exhaled and continued.

 

The last time he saw Scully or her son, it was amid the chaos of doctors and nurses on the helipad two days ago. The police yelled at him to lay Scully on the gurney and back away, hands in the air, which Mulder had.  As they'd cuffed him, Agent Reyes tried to intervene, but he'd yelled at her not to. To go with Scully. Reyes hesitated, but turned and hurried after the gurney.

 

The officers deemed he resisted arrest and shoved Mulder face down on the landing pad, so he hadn't seen see what happened to the baby.  He'd heard it crying, though.  He'd Skinner called from jail, but the AD seemed uncharacteristically uninformed, saying Scully and the baby were stable and being transferred back to DC so her OB/GYN could examine the baby. Mulder asked why. Skinner said something about a "high risk pregnancy" which sounded unconvincing.

 

When the police released Mulder, he hadn't called Scully because it was the middle of the night and he didn't want to wake her. Morning had broken, though, so the excuse didn't work anymore. Between the airport and the hospital, he picked up his cell phone a few hundred times, his finger poised to dial, but put it down again.

 

Mulder leaned against the window of the neonatal nursery at Washington Memorial Hospital, forearms against the glass, and studied the baby in bassinette number four.  The nurses had the baby wrapped in a blue-striped blanket and a knit cap on its head, so Mulder saw only a miniature face. Fastened to the bottom of little plastic bed was a tag reading 'Scully.'

 

He pressed his palm against the cool window, watching closely for any sign something was wrong.  The super-soldiers hadn't taken it, and hadn't killed it, so something had to be wrong.  Abnormal.  If the baby was sick, though, it would be in the NICU, not the regular nursery.  They'd have monitors and machines all over it. But Emily hadn't been sick, either. Not at first.

 

After a several minutes of watching, he noticed something. The nurses moved around, tending to the other infants, but none came near Scully's son.   

 

"This baby," he asked as one of the women exited the nursery.  He blocked her path, pointing at the window. "The boy.  Dana Scully's baby. What's- No one's touching it.  Is it being isolated?  What's wrong with it?"

 

The nurse's eyes gave him the once-over, making sure he had a visitor's pass attached to his rumpled shirt. "He's sleeping.  There's nothing wrong; we try not to disturb the babies while they're sleeping. Are you a friend of Dr. Scully's?"

 

Mulder nodded. "You're certain it's fine?  There's nothing abnormal?  They've run tests?"

 

"He's fine. Perfectly healthy. Considering what they've been through, he and his mother are both doing fine," she assured him. "Dr. Scully's allowed one visitor at a time, and I think her mother's with her. You're welcome to wait, though, if you'd like to see her."

 

"I'll wait," he agreed, and turned back to the window. 

 

"I can show you to the waiting room."

 

"I'll wait here," he said without looking away from the baby.

 

The scenarios circled his brain like scavengers, looking for any vulnerability. Maybe the nurse lied, and the baby was sick. Or there might be something wrong the tests couldn't detect, something that wouldn't show up until later. Or this wasn't Scully's baby. Maybe, in all the confusion, someone switched infants. It could be a clone. A hybrid. A genetically engineered thing created as a pawn to control them.

 

Or it was a normal, human child conceived by two human parents. Staring at the baby, Mulder didn't know which possibility frightened him more.

 

As if aware of being watched, the baby yawned. He shifted so one fist escaped the blanket and opened his blue eyes. He looked around, silently, serenely acquainting himself with his new world.

 

The concept had been abstract - 'her baby.' An idea, a goal, an outcome.  Something to protect, something Mulder worried might come between them, something to make Scully happy. This child was flesh and blood, though. He was their flesh and blood, or at least, a remarkable facsimile.

 

A chill ran down Mulder's spine, reversed, and sent shivers through his body. Despite his fears, he wanted to believe they'd done this - his body and hers. Before that night together, this being didn't exist. Now, by whatever means and for whatever reason, it did. They'd created a life together.

 

He felt the layer of ice inside him start to thaw, falling away from his heart in painful chunks, and letting some feeling return. For the first time, he let hope begin to flicker inside him - it might be okay. The baby would be okay. They - he and Scully - would be okay.

 

"Hi," he told the infant softly, through the glass.

 

"It's important for a child to have two parents," the nurse said, startling him. "Aside from financial security, it gives the child access to the father's medical history. If something would happen to the father, the child will be eligible for survivor's benefits. It gives the child a vital sense of stability and acceptance to have legal proof of the father's identity."

 

Mulder turned his head, looking at her.

  

"Also, it gives the father a legal say in decisions about his child," she continued easily. "Regardless of his relationship with the mother. Establishing paternity is a simple procedure. The father needs to show photo ID and sign a form."

 

"Okay," he agreed. If she'd said it was vital to Scully and the baby Mulder hit himself in the head with a sledgehammer, he'd have done it. "Do I need to do that?"

 

"You can. It's called a Declaration of Paternity. Would you like me to get the form?"

 

"Okay," Mulder repeated.

 

She returned to the nursery, and he watched as she spoke to a second nurse, gesturing to Mulder and to the baby. They had a short conversation he couldn't hear before the second nurse returned to the hallway, looking uncomfortable.

 

"I'm Marie. I've been taking care of Dana and her son since they arrived," she introduced herself. "I was told you're a friend of Dana's, and you want to establish paternity?"

 

"The other nurse said there was a form."

 

She paused uncertainly. "It's my understanding Dana's choosing not to reveal the father's identity. She's a single, professional woman who wanted a child, and both she and the biological father wish to keep the baby's paternity anonymous."

 

"Oh." He exhaled, deflating. The candle inside him guttered, starved of oxygen, and died silently.

 

"We want to establish paternity in cases where the father will be contributing to the support of the child and involved in its life, but when he's not... I don't want anyone acting against Dana's wishes. Do you understand?"

 

"Yeah, I understand." Mulder nodded. He swallowed. "I understand.  Sure.  The other nurse asked, so I thought..." He trailed off, gesturing to his ignorance. "I don't know what I was thinking. Never mind."

 

"Dana's resting right. Why don't we wait until she's awake and ask what she wants to do? Maybe I misunderstood."

 

Mulder pushed off the window and shoved his fists in his jacket pockets. "No, you didn't," he said simply. "Thank you."

 

"Do you want to wait and talk to Dana?"

 

"I'll call her."

 

"Do you want me to tell her you were here?"

 

Mulder shook his head. He turned and walked toward the elevator, unfastening his visitor's badge as he left. 

 

****

 

Agent Doggett was right; it did end.  His quest - a life spent alone, tilting at windmills and chasing monsters with a butterfly net.  It did end. 

 

It had to, someday.

 

Mulder did what he set out to do; he'd found Samantha. And he found The Truth on numerous occasions to have it crumble to dust between his fingers. He'd lost his family and career and life - also on numerous occasions. He had nothing left except a few scars, the nightmares, a stack of old files, and a collection of farfetched stories nobody believed. 

 

And Scully. 

 

And Scully's baby. 

 

He was Agent Nobody, and he'd reached a dead end on the road to Nowhere.

 

He sat in his car in the hospital parking garage, his thumb poised over the 'send' button on his cell phone.  He drummed his fingertips on the steering wheel, took a deep breath, and pushed it.

 

Scully's mother answered and passed the receiver to Scully, who answered with a groggy, "Hello."

 

"Hey," he said softly. "How're you doing?"

 

He heard the hospital bed shift. "Good. Better. They're talking about discharging me tomorrow morning."

 

He chewed his lower lip before he asked, "And the baby?"

 

"He's fine. He's ready to go home; they're letting him stay in the hospital so he can be with me."

 

"Is he with you?" Mulder asked, knowing he wasn't.

 

"He's in the nursery. He just nursed, and I was hoping to get a nap and a shower while he's asleep."

 

"I should let you go."

 

"No, it's okay," she said quickly. "How are you? I heard you had a run-in with Georgia's finest."

 

He shrugged a shoulder she couldn't see. "Skinner took care of it."

 

"He said he would. Are you okay? Where are you?"

 

Mulder looked at the front of Washington Memorial Hospital across the street and answered, "Atlanta. I'll be in DC in a few hours. Do you need me to pick you up at the hospital in the morning?"

 

"Mom's here.  She'll drive us home and get us settled in." 

 

"What about something from the store? Do you need diapers? Groceries? A college fund?" Me. "I can drop it by. Save you the trouble."

 

"Mom has everything under control. She's in full grandmother mode."

 

"And driving you insane?"

 

She laughed. "Maybe."

 

"Say the word, G-woman, and I'll spring you from the joint.  We'll ride off into the sunset together."

 

"Why don't you come by and see us tomorrow afternoon?"

 

"I can do that," he agreed. "I'll let you get some rest. See you tomorrow."

 

"Okay," she responded. "I'll see you tomorrow."

 

"See you tomorrow," he said. He pushed 'end,' and let the phone drop onto the passenger seat of his car. He stared at it for a moment before he started the engine and backed out of the parking space.

 

****

 

He was Special Agent Fox Mulder, a profiler whose career took a U-turn upon discovering a series of unsolved, unexplained crimes filed away in the basement of the Hoover Building.  Those files became an obsession - to prove the truth, to know what the government didn't want known. To find his sister.  Over the years, he became so driven he had little room in his life for anything else.  It was all about his work.  He had few friends, fewer lovers, and spent too much time alone.  Mulder couldn't say he liked it, but he barely remembered a time it was different.

 

She was Special Agent Dana Scully, a brilliant forensic pathologist assigned to the X-files to hold his feet to the fire of science.  He knew her to be loyal, professional, and not inclined to take much of his bullshit. She was a small, pretty woman in a man's profession. Anyone who called her “honey” risked of getting his ass kicked three ways from Sunday and verbal emasculation with big words he didn't understand.

 

Mulder and Scully: kicking paranormal ass and taking conspirators' names.  Best friends, marginal lovers, allies, and polar opposites. The two of them stood together against the rest of the world and, except for a few setbacks, had for most of a decade. 

 

A year passed since they'd kissed on New Year's Eve, tentatively testing the boundaries and exploring an elusive 'something more.' It had been twelve months since his mother's death, the end of his search for Samantha, and the first time he and Scully had sexual intercourse - a bittersweet act of comfort and obligation on his cold living room floor. Making love came a later - surrendering to the night and kindling a fire threatening to burn out of control in the dawn. He welcomed the flames; she shied away. And they started over, taking it slow, feeling their way. They had all the time in the world.

 

In what felt like a few weeks, Mulder was dead, he wasn't, the X-files were gone, he got fired from the Bureau, and she had William. One night together in March, one trip to Oregon in May, and he'd returned from the grave to find someone secretly replaced their regular lives with Folgers Crystals.

 

Like Archimedes, with a place to stand and Scully beside him, Mulder could move the world. He just needed to find his footing.

 

Without knocking, he used the key she gave him years ago to unlock her front door.  The apartment was dim and quiet, and smelled faintly of baby bath and shampoo.  The muddy running shoes he'd toed off beside the welcome mat that morning had been moved, and his coffee mug dried in the dish drain along with a few dishes.  She'd vacuumed and corralled the ever-encroaching collection of baby paraphernalia to a central location.

 

He kept saying she didn't need to clean up or look after him. Inevitably, the minute he turned his head, she did it anyway.

 

He dropped his duffel bag of clean clothes beside the sofa, tucked the stuffed animal under his arm, and headed for Scully's bedroom.  She lay on the bed, wearing her robe, with her wet hair combed back. William nestled beside her with a drop of milk lingering on his lower lip.  Scully's hand rested on his belly as they dozed.

 

Mulder pulled the blanket up so it covered her hips. She opened her eyes, and he assured her, "It's me.”

 

"Umm," she said in acknowledgment. She yawned. "I was getting up," she added without moving.  

 

"Don't. I can get him. Is he ready for bed?"

 

She nodded.

 

He moved William to the bassinet in the living room, laying him on his side as Scully had instructed.  As the baby settled in, Mulder turned off the lamp on the end table and left the stuffed Snuffaluffagus to stand guard.

 

"Did you buy that for him?" Scully's voice asked sleepily, and Mulder turned to find her watching him from the bedroom doorway.

 

Mulder shrugged one shoulder. "I saw it in the store window and figured every boy needs a Snuffy."

 

"Right. Every boy needs a nonexistent, unhealthy, depressed projection of Big Bird's psyche. You think it's appropriate for a small child?"

 

"I-I thought-" He started to defend himself, but saw she smiled. "You're a party pooper sometimes, Scully."

 

"Umm," she responded noncommittally, turned, and ambled back to bed. "I spoke with AD Skinner this afternoon," she said. "About Quantico. We're meeting tomorrow morning."

 

"You're going back to work this soon?" he asked, trailing after her. Her paid maternity leave ended in a few days, but she could take another six months of family leave. Or, if she wanted, he'd cash in a few of his father's stocks and she could stay home until William started kindergarten.

 

"Part-time," she answered. "In a few weeks. He and I can talk about it."

 

Mulder thought a dozen things but managed to say "Oh."

 

She settled her head on the pillow and adjusted the blanket. "What did you do this afternoon? See the Gunmen?"

 

He shifted his weight from his heels to the balls of his feet and back again. He sat on edge of the mattress, making it dip. "I, uh, did my laundry. Fed my fish. Picked up my mail. Bought a Snuffy, obviously. And a Volvo."

 

She opened her eyes, looking at him quizzically.

 

"A gray one," he added. "Leather, four cup holders, a billion airbags, and a built-in baby seat."

  

"You're serious?" she asked slowly. "A Volvo?"

 

"A gray one. I signed the papers an hour ago.  It's parked outside."

 

"Mulder," she said in her slightly perplexed, slightly disappointed voice.

 

"What?"

 

She sat up and tucked her wet hair behind her ears. "A Volvo. It's so... Not you."

 

"Not me? What's wrong with it? It's a very safe, reliable car."

 

"I mean-" She paused again. "Are you sure it's what you want, Mulder?"

 

"What I want? It's mine. It's a little late to back out."

 

"I guess it is," she responded softly. She lay down again, watching the wall instead of him. 

 

All the things she didn't say were deafening.

 

"What?" he asked. He stretched out, uninvited, beside her on the bed. "Scully?" He stroked her face, not sure what was wrong.

 

"You don't have to do this, Mulder," she said. "You don't have to be someone you aren't. You don't have to prove anything. Not to me.  Not to William."

 

His stomach tightened nervously. "Are you saying you don't want me here? I was trying to help out. If I'm in the way, I can leave-"

 

"No. You're welcome to stay. Or go," she added softly.

 

"I don't understand. What are you saying? I need you to tell me what you want, Scully."

 

"What about what you want?" She moved closer, tracing his face with her thumb. "You've been through so much..."

 

"I can do this," he insisted. "I can. I love you. I want you to be happy.  Safe. You and William, both. I just need- A place to stand."

 

"Like Archimedes?" she asked, and he nodded.

 

He closed his eyes, surrendering to the sensation. Her warm lips brushed his as her fingers continued to caress: through his hair, over the thin skin of his eyelids, and down his cheeks.  Her touch felt delicate, like she thought he was made of glass instead of flesh and bone. 

 

"Do you wanna hear a bedtime story?" he asked quietly.

 

Her pillow rustled as she nodded.

 

"Pygmalion and Galetea," he murmured, moving his hand to rest in the soft cradle of her waist. "They began as the star-crossed lovers of their era. Pygmalion was a Greek sculptor - a lonely man cynical about love until one day he carved a beautiful woman out of marble.  In time, he fell in love with his creation, dressing her and speaking to her if she was real, yet she wasn't.  She loved him, but she couldn't respond, only be there and let him love her. One day, the Goddess Aphrodite took notice of their plight, and the next time Pygmalion kissed Galatea, her lips warmed and she came to life.  Not long after, their first son was born."

 

He didn't hear a response, so he opened his eyes and found her face inches from his, giving him her old skeptical eyebrow.

 

"What?"

 

"Your bedtime story has disturbing overtones of necrophilia, Mulder."

 

Caught off guard, he laughed. In the living room, William mewed. She raised her finger to her lips, hushing Mulder before their stolen time together abruptly ended.

 

"Do you know what you did?" she whispered once the baby was quiet again.

 

"I almost woke William," he guessed.

 

"You laughed. I haven't heard you laugh for so long." She stroked his face again, and down his neck and shoulder. "It's nice."

 

"I'm gonna be here, Scully. I can do this. I just need a place to stand.  For you to love me," he whispered. "And keep loving me. You never know what the gods will do."

 

"I can do that," she promised.

  

****

 

End: Book IV

 

Book V: All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by. Set a course for home.

 

****

 

If their life together was a journey, they’d reached the land past the edge of the map.  Yet in a strange way, they ended up right back where they began. The scientist and the believer, the skeptic and the dreamer, united on a quest to find the truth. Maybe, along the way, also find a little bit of peace. It was an old-fashioned tale of life, love, death, sex, loyalty, betrayal, Armageddon, destiny, and emotional dysfunction.       

 

That she remembered none of.

 

Mulder's prayer, his mission, his mantra had been to find her. Take care of their son but find Scully. For months that purpose propelled him forward, grasping at straws and pushing his mind and body to the breaking point.  Scully was out there, somewhere.  He felt her presence around him, calling to him, as seductive as a siren and as elusive as the fog.  He saw her blue eyes as he looked at William and smelled her skin if he pressed his face into her pillow. For months, he'd believed if he found her and put his arms around her, everything would be all right.

 

Mulder found her - or rather, two weeks ago a nurse found her unconscious outside an Allentown, Pennsylvania emergency room. Scully was there: alive, whole, awake, and barely five feet from him, yet the road to happily-ever-after remained permanently under construction. 

 

Mulder slouched against the windowsill. He held William as another red dawn rose from the horizon behind him, like a phoenix from the ashes. Scully lay in bed. She wore a faded hospital gown and looked too small and pale against the white sheets.  He watched her turn her plastic ID bracelet, looking at the pale purple print.  It was her name, her social security number and blood type, but the world he described didn't exist for her. To her, it was early 1992.  Her father and sister still lived. George Bush was president. Prince Charles and Lady Di remained married, and Johnny Carson still hosted "The Tonight Show."

 

"You disappeared while undercover with another agent in a cult in Virginia," Mulder explained. "In January 2001.  There was a raid on the compound, and you vanished during the confusion. You've been missing. It's late April 2001," he added in case no one had told her.

 

"You've been investigating this cult, Agent Mulder?" she asked.

 

"Yes," he said softly. "And your abduction."

 

She recognized his name from his monograph on Monty Props but, to her, he knew they'd never met. Special Agent Fox Mulder was a rising profiler with the Investigative Support Unit; Dr. Dana Scully worked as an instructor in the Forensic Science Research and Training Center.  If she had ever heard of the X-files, it was probably as a humorous anecdote over the coffeepot in the break room at Quantico.  To her, no aliens existed. No abductions, no conspiracies, viruses, black oil, hybrids, or super-soldiers.  To her, she'd never been assigned as his partner.  They'd never spoken, solved a case, saved the world, fought, made up, made love, or made a child.

 

Hello, my name is Fox Mulder.  We used to sit next to each other at the FBI.

 

She looked at him, and at William. The baby held Mulder's shirt with one wet fist and gnawed on the other, trying to assuage his sore gums. Mulder watched her for a sign of recognition, but he didn't see any.  She seemed to assume he'd brought his infant son along because he couldn't get a sitter in the middle of the night. 

 

"I was abducted?" she asked.

 

"Yes," he answered, though she asked one question and he answered another. "From the compound of The Church of the 13th Sign."

 

"Ophiuchus," she said, more to herself than him.

 

"Yes." The butterflies began to flutter in his stomach. "Do you remember?"

 

"Ophiuchus is the 13th sign, Agent Mulder. Due to slight shifts in the Earth's orbit over thousands of years, the elliptic - the sun's path across the sky - passes through thirteen zodiac signs.  From November 30th to December 17th, the Sun is in the house of Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer. Which invalidates claims astrology has any scientific basis or-"

 

She seemed puzzled at his sudden twisted grin.  The butterflies in his belly had a field day, and the tingling sensation trickled down his spine again, warming his tired body from the inside out. 

 

"What is it, Agent Mulder?"

 

"Nothing," he responded. He bounced William and smiled nostalgically as he turned to look at the sunrise. "It's nice to have you back, Agent Scully."

 

****

 

The neurologist suggested retrograde amnesia, though Scully showed no evidence of a head injury.  The psychiatrist leaned toward hysterical amnesia - the suppression of memory in reaction to a traumatic event.  The nurses had collected trace evidence and done a rape kit, both fruitless. Aside from some muscular atrophy, the only physical abnormality was the remnants of branched DNA in her bloodstream, which the hematologist couldn't explain. And, in her x-rays, a mysterious metallic speck at the base of her skull.

 

"Shrapnel, probably," the radiologist assured her as Mulder stood by, silently studying the floor. "It couldn't be causing memory loss."

 

The hospital admitted Scully as a comatose Jane Doe. She woke twelve days later in the ICU, identifying herself as an FBI Agent, weak but coherent. Only when the hospital called the phone numbers she gave as emergency contacts did they suspect something amiss. They thought she was delusional, but after she insisted, the police ran 'Dana Scully' through the NCIC database and found her listed as a missing person - much to her and their surprise.

 

Despite the warnings against upsetting her "fragile emotional state," as soon as she could sit up, Scully wanted to see her chart. She wanted to review the file on The Church of the 13th Sign, which, thanks to Kersh's legacy, remained a manila-encased bundle of misinformation. She quizzed Mulder about Ophiuchus and the raid; she got a frustrated crease in the white skin between her brows each time he repeated the sanitized-for-her-protection version of events.

 

An army of physicians told Scully to be patient, and her memory should return. Perhaps in increments or all at once. They said forty-eight hours, then seventy-two. Three weeks after her admission to Allentown General, a gaping hole remained in her life where Mulder, William, and the X-files once were.

 

Mulder returned to the hospital Sunday evening after a catnap, shower, and shave. She sat near the window, looking at the newspaper. Instead of a thin hospital gown, she wore the robe and slippers her mother must have brought.  Her hair was damp, and the smell of industrial soap and shampoo lingered in the air.  On the small rolling table beside her, the food on her dinner tray looked rearranged but uneaten.

 

"You're up," he observed neutrally. "It's good to see you out of bed."

 

"Agent Mulder." She folded the paper and put it aside. She tucked her hair behind her ears and gave him a Mona Lisa smile as she said hello. "Mom helped. She left a few minutes ago."

 

"I saw her in the parking lot. She's headed back to her hotel," he said, telling her the truth in the same way O'Doul's was beer. "How are you feeling tonight?"

 

"Good.  Better.  You're solo, Agent Mulder.  Is the baby with his mother?"

 

"No, she's-" He shook his head. "She's- No. William's with his grandmother tonight."

 

"I didn't mean to pry. You don't wear a wedding band, and you keep him with you so much. I thought you might have him for weekend visits."

 

"No," he said, but didn't elaborate.

 

She smoothed her hair again, seeming self-conscious.

 

He cleared his throat.

 

Her room overlooked the darkening city, and Mulder saw Sirius in the southern sky. Over a year ago, he laid in bed with her, his arms around her bare body and their legs intertwined, looking out his window as she told him about the Dog Star. It was the brightest of all stars, twenty-three times brighter than the sun, she'd said as he'd stroked her hair. In myth, Sirius was Orion's hunting dog, and the Ancient Egyptians used it to predict the flooding of the Nile, she'd said. She'd raised her hand and pointed out the winter triangle: Sirius, Betelgeuse, and Canis Minor. He took her wrist, kissed a path to her shoulder, and, the second time, Mulder let her love him.

 

That night they made William. Sirius stood guard, watching over them until he sank into the horizon and Ophiuchus rose in the east.

 

"Staring at me won't make me remember any faster," Scully's voice said, jarring him back to reality.

 

"Hum?" Mulder asked.

 

"You were watching me again, Agent Mulder.  You look at me like I have secrets locked up inside me and you need to remember where you've left the key."

 

"No, I- Uh- I was looking outside," he lied. "Thinking. It's a pretty night."

 

He couldn't tell if she believed him or was being polite, but she turned her head to look at the stars with him. 

 

"My father taught me the constellations," she said. "When I was a little girl, he taught me how sailors navigated by the stars. The myths: Orion and Taurus and Gemini. The Crab and The Lion and The Dragon. I used to sit on the roof with him for hours, looking at the night sky."

 

"Those sound like good memories."

 

"Yes," she said softly.

 

She watched the stars for a few more minutes. He pretended to watch with her, stealing occasional glances at her profile.

 

"This afternoon, while you were gone, I asked Mom about my father," she told the window. "About why he hasn't come to the hospital or called. She said he was at sea and changed the subject, but I- I don't think she told me the truth."

 

"What do you think?" he hedged.

 

She continued to focus on the dark glass. "I think he's dead. I feel it, like there's a hole inside me."

 

He waited, not sure how to respond. 

 

"Either you can tell me, Agent Mulder, or I can check the death records. Am I right? Is he dead?" 

 

He nodded, though she wasn't looking at him. "He died in 1994, after Christmas. He was at home, with your mother, and he had a heart attack. At his request, he was cremated and his remains scattered into the sea."

 

Two pained wrinkles appeared between her eyebrows. "How can I not remember?" she asked hollowly.

 

He didn't respond because he didn't have an answer. Not an answer he could tell her, anyway. The psychiatrist harped on hysterical amnesia being her mind's defense against the horror of her "kidnapping" and stressed additional trauma could cause additional memory loss. As much as Mulder wanted to smirk and say, "Dana Scully's never been hysterical in her life," he didn't have a better explanation. Or a better solution than to wait. 

 

Even though the chip in her neck might be blocking her memories, it couldn't be removed. Or, if she'd undergone some form of brainwashing, he had no idea how to reverse it. Even if he laid out the events of the last decade for her, complete with slides and police reports, he could only give her back facts, but not the essence of who she was. The richness of life lay in the moments people forgot: the minor squabbles, the casual discussions, the ebb and flow of everyday living. Those made her Scully - the little bits of life that were shaved off, swept up, thrown away, and lost over time.

 

"Do you know Agent Jack Willis? Agent Mulder," she asked after a few strained minutes. "Since you seem to know everything else about my life?"

 

"Scully-"

 

"I called Quantico. Obviously, he hasn't come to the hospital, but I thought... He gets caught up in his work, sometimes.  The secretary said Jack was killed in 1994. I was with him when he died." Her eyes started to shine. She bit her lower lip white and shook her head. "But I don't remember."

 

He squatted down in front of her chair, blocking her view of the sky. "Scully, stop.  Please don't do this to yourself."

 

"I don't remember anything about the cult: where I was held, what was done to me, anything to help you find the people who took me," she said rapidly. "What if they're holding other women-"

 

"Scully." Mulder put one hand over hers. "Stop. You heard what the doctor said. Don't force your mind; let the memories come back on their own.  There's time.  I can wait; we can wait.  You..." He stopped. "You can't go looking for answers you aren't ready to find."

 

She wiped her eyes, seeming to regain some of her self-control. "Did any other tragedies happen in 1994 I should know about?"

 

"A bad Star Trek movie. And they canceled the World Series because of a players' strike," he said. "I was in therapy for months."

 

She sniffed and smiled sadly.

 

"That's so pretty," he whispered, his face still close to hers. "When you smile."

  

She inhaled and, for two breaths, held his gaze. Electricity crackled between them. She had to feel it, as he did, but she didn't know why. Mulder moved forward to kiss her. She moved back and looked away. She wiped her eyes again, though she'd stopped crying.

 

"Sorry." He took several steps back and leaned against the foot of the bed.  He looked down, watching his loafers and fidgeting. 

 

He stole a surreptitious glance. Scully focused on the window again, with her face expressionless.

 

"I knew Agent Willis," Mulder said. He shifted his hands against the bed. "Not well, but I'd met him.  There was a shootout in a bank, and both Willis and a criminal named Warren Dupre were wounded.  You were in the bank, but you weren't responsible for his death in any way. In fact, you did everything you could to save his life.  You kept trying to get him back long after the ER docs wanted to give up."

 

She showed no sign she heard him.

 

Mulder looked around her hospital room, searching for something neutral to talk about.  His gaze stopped on the uneaten food on her tray. "This stuff looks hazardous to your health," he said more casually than he felt. "What if I find a wheelchair and we go for a roll down to the cafeteria? Whatever they're serving has to be more appetizing than this.  I can't let my one witness starve to death."

 

She nodded silently, but as he started to leave, said, "I remember Warren Dupre. I saw Jack do this - become over-involved with the investigation. With Dupre's victims. He knows- He knew them so well he'd start to feel a bond with them. An intimacy."

 

Mulder stopped in the doorway, turned, and rested his hand on the painted metal doorjamb.

  

"Those feelings aren't real," she added. "You're a profiler, Agent Mulder. You know they aren’t real."

 

He cleared his throat again, trying to dislodge the stubborn lump in it. "I'll go see about the wheelchair," he said.

 

She nodded without looking at him.

  

****

 

Mulder arrived two mornings later to hear the shower in her hospital room running. The bathroom door stood open.  Though he knew he shouldn't, he glanced in the bathroom, expecting to see Scully's silhouette through the shower curtain.  Instead, he saw her standing in front of the mirror, staring at herself.

 

"Scully?"

 

She turned her head and watched her reflection as it moved with her.  He saw a towel and robe hanging outside the shower, but she'd gotten as far as unbuttoning her pajama top. Her hair was dry and tousled from a restless night's sleep.

 

"Scully?" he repeatedly worriedly, but she didn't look away. "Dana?  Are you okay?"

 

She ran her hands over her body, oblivious to him. Her expression seemed far away, like she looked through the fogged mirror and saw both the past and the future at once.

 

"Are you remembering?" he asked softly. Mulder stepped closer. "Scully?"

 

As he watched, she touched the tops of her breasts, and her hips. She pushed her hair back from her face and turned from side to side again, looking at herself.

 

Her hair was shorter and brighter than she would remember, and she had fine lines around her eyes and mouth.  Her breasts would seem softer and fuller, and her hips rounder.  Her cheeks and collarbones were more pronounced – a hollowness she'd never lost after her cancer.  She was thirty-seven, buffeted by time and tide into a strong, beautiful woman, but the Dana Scully she remembered had yet to reach thirty.

 

She examined the changes with a scientist's eye.  Her body must seem familiar, yet foreign, like someone else lived in it for the last decade.

 

Her fingers stopped on her abdomen and pushed aside her cotton pajama top, examining the puckered scar marking her skin.

 

"You were shot," he explained. He stepped into the bathroom. "In 1999, you were shot by another agent in the line of duty."

 

"What else, Agent Mulder?" she asked in a carefully even voice.

 

The shower continued to drum against the tiles, and the steam eased out around the thin curtain.

 

"Scully, the doctors said-"

 

"What else?" she demanded.

 

He moved so he stood behind her, looking at the reflection of the two of them in the mirror. "There are two scars on your neck." He raised his hand to indicate, close to her skin, but not touching. "A small one from your abduction, and one from a run-in with a cult in Utah in summer 2000. You have a tattoo." His fingertips hovered over the small of her back. "Here.  A tattoo of a snake eating its tail."

 

"An ouroboros."

 

He nodded and lowered his hand.

 

"I don't remember," she said raggedly.

 

"You will. Give yourself some time."

 

"But what if I don't? What if I don't ever remember?"

 

She touched the sides of her belly, above the waist of her pajama bottoms. She had faint red lines there - the map from a journey he'd shared little of.

 

"I have stretch marks."

 

"Yes."

 

"I've given birth to a child. Fairly recently."

 

"Yes."

 

She traced the marks and looked up, meeting his gaze in the mirror. "You aren't here solely to investigate my abduction, are you, Agent Mulder?"

 

He shook his head slowly.

 

"Your son... William. Is that my baby?"

 

He nodded.

 

"Are you my husband? Are we married?"

 

"No," he answered quietly. "No, you didn't want to get married." 

 

The mirror fogged, offering a hazy suggestion of who they were. 

 

"Do you love me?" she asked in a hoarse whisper.

 

"You know I do."

 

She took a breath and put her hands on the white sink as if steadying herself. "I want to go home. Today. Do we have a home?"

 

"You have an apartment in Georgetown. I have a place in Alexandria where I keep my fish, videos, and dirty laundry. Since William came, I've stayed with you."

 

"And before that?"

 

"We worked together. We've been partners for more than eight years."

 

She turned, looking up at him, but kept one hand on the sink. "I want to go home."

 

Her face flushed from the steam, and her messy hair curled around her face. She looked beautiful, but her eyes were tired. Adrift.

 

"I'll take you home," he promised.

 

****

 

Scully was under the mistaken impression Mulder had his shit together.

 

He knew the pretty picture she saw. A star profiler and a forensic pathologist were assigned as partners, fell in love and, getting ahead of themselves, had a child out of wedlock. She had reservations about marriage, or he had, but they loved each other and their child. She was abducted, leaving the profiler to care for their infant son while he searched for her. After months, via his brilliance and heroism, he found her and they went home - heading down a long stretch of highway into the sunset in a gray Volvo with their baby in the back. He was her knight in shining F.B.I. body armor.

 

It could be a Lifetime movie of the week.

 

Despite her bravado about feeling better, Scully fell asleep before they hit the Pennsylvania Turnpike and didn't wake until they approached Baltimore. Her mother had brought pajamas to the hospital, so Scully wore a pair of blue jeans from the outlet mall beside the motel and Mulder's old Oxford sweatshirt. With her hair pulled back into a ponytail and her face free of makeup, she looked like a college student as she yawned and opened her eyes.

 

"I got coffee," Mulder said.

 

She turned her head toward him uncertainly, as if needing a few seconds to remember where she was, who he was, and why she was in a car with him.

 

"I got coffee." He gestured to the other cup in the holder. "I stopped to change the chub scout a bit ago, and I saw a coffee shop.  It should still be hot."

 

"Thank you," she answered politely and picked up the cup he'd indicated.  She took a sip and turned her head to watch the miles of highway pass outside her window.

 

He glanced in the rearview mirror, checking on William, and focused on midday traffic.  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Scully studying her cup.

 

"Did they get it wrong?"

 

"No.  It's fine.  Dark roast - cream, no sugar."

 

"What is it?" he asked after several seconds of silence. "Scully? Are you all right?"

 

"I'm fine. It's eerie," she said, still looking down. "You know how I like my coffee. What size clothes I wear. My medical history. My work history. My family. We have a baby, so obviously... You know all about me-"

 

"But you don't know anything about me," he finished for her.

 

She nodded. "I've heard the stories. How the Bureau recruited you right out of Oxford. How you were solving cases before you graduated from the academy. How you'd be driving along, notice what you thought looked like a good place to dump a body, check, and find one."

 

"The body was one time in Oklahoma. Back road, call of nature; a lucky guess, a legend is born." He paused. "Since there's no sign of damage to the hippocampus, some or all of your memories may still return.  Especially if you're calm and around familiar people and things. But you're a medical doctor; you know the prognosis," he finished lamely.

 

"I know," she echoed softly. Later, she added, "My mother likes you."

 

"Your mother tolerates me. Bill, Jr. hates me, and the feeling is mutual."

 

"And my father?"

 

"I never got to meet him. I know he was proud of you, though. You were his Starbuck."

 

She sipped her coffee and went back to watching the window. He adjusted his hands on the steering wheel, hoping she would say something else, but she didn't.

 

"About two years ago, after being told you couldn't conceive a child naturally, you approached me about in vitro fertilization," he said carefully. "You asked me to donate anonymously, as your friend, and I agreed.  We did everything the doctor said - the tests and the hormones and the sterile cups - and six months and a lot of heartbreak later, you still weren't pregnant. You could have tried again with donor ova, but you didn't."

 

Her face turned away, toward the roadside billboards, so he couldn't gauge her reaction.

 

"Until William, we worked on the X-files Unit, which specializes in cases involving bizarre, paranormal, or unexplained phenomena," he continued, picking his way across a verbal minefield. "We had a good solve rate, given what we had to work with. We can solve the cases and catch the monsters, but when it comes to us, we're two-steps-forward, three-steps-back, Scully. Last March, during one of those steps forward... You got your miracle."

 

He adjusted his hands again and checked the back of her head for any response.

 

"I love you. I'd go to the ends of the Earth for you. I'd come back from the dead for you, but we didn't plan to have a child together - not like this. I don't think you knew what to say to me, and I had no idea what to say to you. I wasn't sure how or if I fit into the picture. You'd prayed for a baby, and you were prepared to raise him alone if I wouldn't have come back."

 

She paused a moment before she answered. "You did come back."

 

"So did you," he said quietly. "It's not perfect, Scully. You, me, us - it's not even close."

 

She nodded, barely moving her head.

 

Mulder opened his mouth, but lost his nerve and said instead, "The good news is all my witty puns will seem new to you. And you have ten years of Keanu Reeves and Kevin Costner movies to catch up on."

 

"Someone's still paying those two to make movies?"

 

"Strangely, yes," he deadpanned. "It is an X-file."

 

She looked at him and smiled - the same sad smile as in the hospital - the polite expression of someone lost but who didn't want to admit it.

  

****

 

Since childhood, this was Mulder's favorite time - before dawn, before even a fine layer of daybreak began to glow on the dark horizon. Outside, the stars glittered like blue and yellow and white diamonds, and the silence covered the world like a goose down comforter. For years he'd gone for early morning runs, pushing his body, clearing the cobwebs from his mind, and savoring the blood coursing through his veins.  Now pre-dawn meant a gentle, tactile time of cool air and warm bottles, of cotton onesies and the infinite richness of his son's skin.

 

William finished the bottle. He released the nipple with a soft pop and a satisfied burp.

 

"Well, that cuts out a step," Mulder whispered. He looked down and ran his fingertips over the baby's full belly.

 

"Muh," William informed Mulder solemnly, tracking his face with his blue eyes.

 

"Muh," he agreed, and shifted the baby in the crook of his other arm as they looked out Scully's living room windows.  The ripe moon was a pale rust color, lingering in the west like the backdrop of a movie - too beautiful to be real.  As they watched, a falling star passed across it, burning like a comet, and disappeared in the blackness of space.

 

"It's a gypsy moon," he told William quietly. "When a shooting star crosses paths with a full moon. It's an old legend; if you see a gypsy moon you're doomed to wander like a gypsy, always in search of something past the edge of your dreams. Your mother told me the story," Mulder whispered. "Except she'd add there is seldom any scientific or historical basis to such legends, and the 'shooting star' we saw is a chunk of space rock falling into Earth's atmosphere. Mommy kinda misses the point of things, sometimes, but we love her anyway."

 

William patted the front of Mulder's old t-shirt thoughtfully as they studied the night sky.

 

"I guess we’re gypsies, buddy."

 

"Muh," the baby responded.

 

"Yeah, muh," Mulder agreed softly.

 

He heard Scully's bed shift, and tentative footsteps followed by water running in the bathroom.  A few minutes later, she emerged in a satiny pair of white pajamas, drying her face with a towel.  She paused to look around her dim living room, glanced at Mulder's wadded blanket on the sofa, and started toward the empty nursery, still unsteady on her feet.

 

"We're here," he said, trying not to startle her. "William's here.  He's awake."

 

"Is he all right?"

 

"He's fine. He gets up early."

 

She adjusted her loose pajama top as if she wrapped a robe around her body. "What time is it?" As she approached, her bare feet were soundless on the rug.

 

"Before six."

 

"I slept that long? Why didn't you wake me?"

 

"You need your rest. I think you were out before your head hit your pillow yesterday afternoon."

 

She stopped a few feet from him. She pushed her tousled hair back from her face and tucked it behind her ears. "Did anything important happen?"

 

"In the last twelve hours or the last nine years?"

 

The ghost of a smile passed across her lips. "Start with the last twelve hours and we can go from there."

 

Mulder paused, momentarily distracted. Before William's birth, he'd seen her like this on a handful of occasions: lazily half-wake, relaxed, before she'd buttoned up her daytime armor. Uncoifed. Vulnerable. Imperfectly beautiful. 

 

"Your mom came by to stock the refrigerator, chastise me for letting you leave the hospital, and give me a few warnings about propriety," he said. "I'm supposed to tell you there's food in the fridge, she'll be back at eight a.m., and you should call her if there are any - and she means any - problems. Before she left, she put a blanket and pillow on the sofa and pointedly said she hoped I'd be comfortable sleeping there."

 

"She forgets I'm a grown woman, but my mother means well."

 

"Scully, I've known your mother for years. I know she means well. How does this rate on the eeriness scale?" he asked. "Waking up in an apartment you don't remember moving into and finding a baby and a strange man in your living room?"

 

"You don't seem that strange."

 

"Wait 'til you get to know me," he responded, and earned another of those gentle, easy smiles so rarely seen after their first year together.

 

He remembered this woman: the one who'd made her way through the rheumatic bowels of the Hoover Building to invade his life in 1992, an unnecessary and unwelcome Bureau-designated yin to his yang.  She'd been softer, more trusting, less batted around by life. Dana Scully had been a hundred and ten pounds of rational explanations and wide-eyed wonder, constantly at his heels and hell-bent on poking holes in any theory he threw out.

 

He wondered if he'd loved her even then.

 

"You're doing it again, Agent Mulder," she said softly, bringing him back to reality. "Watching me."

 

"William was watching you." He smoothed the mink-like chestnut wisps covering the baby's head. "I'm merely holding him, Agent Scully."

 

She studied him for a moment, seeming unconvinced, and turned her head to look out the window at the sleeping city. She stayed quiet so long it started to worry him.

 

"Scully? Are you all right?"

 

"I was thinking- As difficult as this is for me to comprehend, it must be equally difficult for you. When you look at me... We have a child together, and I don't even remember your middle name. Or how old you are.  Your birthday. Your favorite food. When we met. Or the first time we kissed."

 

"William," he answered softly, in the intimate darkness. "Like your father. My middle name is William. Fox William Mulder."

 

She looked back at him. The streetlight outside played across her face, gently illuminating half while leaving the other half in shadow.

 

"I'm forty-one. October 13, 1961. Sunflower seeds; I have an unnatural fondness for sunflower seeds."

 

"And the rest?" she asked, her voice an octave lower.

 

"We met March 6, 1992 when you marched into my office in your God-awful plaid suit and announced I was a complete - albeit brilliant - crackpot for believing some mysteries are inexplicable by modern science." He paused to savor the memory like fine wine on his tongue. "December 31, 1999. A New Year's Eve kiss we later pretended happened because I was under the influence of pain killers."

 

"And William?"

 

He moistened his lips. "March 23, 2000. You fell asleep on my sofa. I woke up in the middle of the night, and you were standing beside my bed.  You were gone when I woke up the next morning."

 

"Was that the first time?"

 

"No."

 

She broke eye contact and looked down, focusing on the baby in his arms. "You have a good memory for dates."

 

"The important ones," he responded.

 

He felt the warmth radiating from her body. He imagined how her skin would feel if he pressed his lips against the hollow of her throat, and how she would smell if he buried his face in her neck. Her skin would be warm and smooth and velvety, like a peach in the summer sun. If Nirvana had its own fragrance line, it combined William's No More Tears-scented crown and the soft spot pulsing under Scully's left ear. All Mulder wanted was to lead her back to bed, lay William between them, interlace their fingers, close his eyes, and sleep for five years.

 

The worst way to miss a woman was to be inches from her, knowing he couldn't have her. After all his searching, he'd found a Dana Scully – but not the same one he'd lost four months ago.

 

"We saw a gypsy moon." Mulder cleared his throat as she looked up. "William and me. Before you got up, we saw a shooting star cross the full moon. So we're cursed: doomed to wander forever."

 

"It's an old legend. My father used to put me to bed with a story about the gypsy moon."

 

"I know. You told the story to me," he said. "One night. During some stakeout. I'm warning you - if it's true, you're dealing with two gypsies."

 

"Well, I'll consider myself duly warned."

 

She traced the sole of the baby's foot with her index finger. Instinctively, William curled his toes and pulled his foot back. She lowered her hand. 

 

"You know, I never gave much thought to having children. While my friends were getting married and starting families, I was busy with medical school and my career. I assumed, someday..."

 

"This is someday, Scully," he reminded her.

 

"I guess it is," she agreed. "Do you think he'd let me hold him?"

 

"Do you want to?"

 

She nodded silently.

 

Without comment, he nodded to the armchair beside the fireplace. Scully sat down, looking as if she expected to be called next in a spelling bee.

 

"What should I do?"

 

"Relax," he told her. "You're a natural at this, I promise. Feed, change, burp, bathe, love, protect against the universe, and do not drop on head. Repeat as necessary."

 

As he knelt and shifted William to her uncertain arms, Mulder noticed an ache inside his chest, like his heart was under siege by an army of toy soldiers wielding little plastic cocktail swords. 

 

"Got him?" he asked, staying close to her. 

 

"I think so."

 

The baby took his fingers out of his mouth. He looked to Mulder for reassurance but laid his head trustingly against her shoulder and his wet hand on Scully's breast, toying with her silky pajama top.

 

Those toy soldiers overran Mulder's heart, skewering it with their plastic swords so it leaked from a hundred miniscule paper cuts. Relief, fear, anger, hurt, and undying love - all seeped out and swirled together in the choppy sea inside him while the surface remained deceptively calm.

 

"See." He had to clear his throat again as he moved back, and his arms felt preternaturally empty. "Nothing to it."

 

****

 

Unfortunately, the wackos and sickos of the world didn't understand the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the ISU was equally bad. Mulder could call in dead and someone from the Investigative Support Unit would wave a field report over his casket, wanting him to review it before the undertaker closed the lid.

 

Using Scully's computer, Mulder deleted the unread memos from his inbox, scanned the other e-mails, and picked up the thick package couriered from Quantico. He sighed as he leafed through the glossy black and white crime photos in the first file. He read a few reports and decided a strong pot of coffee was in order.

 

William had been down since eight and hopefully wouldn't wake for another few hours.  Scully lay on the sofa, curled under a throw blanket with the remote control still in her hand.  She'd been mumbling earlier but slept quietly now.  Mulder slid the remote from her fingers, muted the television, and tucked the blanket around her.

 

Within minutes, Mr. Coffee's white plastic belly gurgled and the scent of French roast weaved its way through the apartment.  While Mulder waited, he found his old NICAP mug and opened a few cabinets, scanning the choices for a potential midnight snack. Mrs. Scully’s grocery shopping skills far exceeded his.

 

"Don't you ever sleep, Agent Mulder?" Scully's voice asked from the doorway, taking him by surprise.

 

"It's 'Mulder.'" He closed the cabinet, turned, and leaned back against the counter. He gestured to the sofa in the next room. "You were in my bed."

 

"Oh," she said with the morning-after awkwardness of a woman who couldn't remember the night before.

 

The coffee pot dripped its last trickle, and he filled his mug, dosing it liberally with sugar. "Caffeine and empty carbohydrates: like sleep in a cup," he told her, wrapping his hands around the warm mug and raising it to his lips.

 

She looked at him numbly, either still half asleep or momentarily wondering if life made some cosmic mistake and Fate might take it all back. 

 

A week had passed since he brought her home from Allentown General Hospital, ignoring the doctors' objections. Her strength returned, but she had no flickers of memory, no flashbacks, no nothing.  She had a void between early 1992 and waking in the hospital room a month ago.  Except in the life she woke to, her father and sister were dead.  The doctors said she was sterile, yet she had a child she couldn't remember giving birth to, fathered by a man she couldn't remember even kissing. In her absence, the world moved on, leaving her behind to flounder in its wake.

 

Mulder could tell her he understood, but she'd never believe him.

 

"You okay?" he asked, knowing her response.

 

She nodded and said, "Fine."

 

"Did you have a bad dream?"

 

She shook her head. "I don't think so. I don't have dreams. None I remember, anyway."

 

"Good." He blew across the black surface of his coffee, sending miniature ripples.

 

She glanced at him and looked away. He heard the gears grind as she changed the subject. "It looks like you're planning to be up a while."

 

"Work." He nodded to the sterile collage of death on the kitchen table. "I was hoping to get a profile or two done while you and William slept."

 

"I should let you work."

 

He responded by putting his coffee mug down, pulling out the chair at the head of the table, and offering it to her.  As she sat down, he got out the tea bags and a second cup from her cabinets, and turned the burner on under the kettle.  Once her tea was underway, he slid into the chair on her right.

   

"Are you working on anything interesting?" she asked awkwardly.

 

"Your run-of-the-mill sociopaths, psychopaths, pedophiles, and, possibly, if I'm lucky, a zombie."

 

Mulder gave Scully a tired grin as he picked up the first of the field reports. One of William's pacifiers rested between the salt and pepper shakers, and he picked it up as well, toying with it as he read.

 

"You do know there's no such thing as a zombie, don't you, Agent Mulder?"

 

"We have a few old files that beg to differ," he responded without looking up.

 

He scanned the third page of the report as she asked, "Do you miss it? Working on the X-files?"

 

"Sometimes," he admitted casually. "But field work, flukemen, and single fatherhood don't mix."

 

"When did you transfer?"

 

"'Transfer' isn't the correct term. When I came back, Agent Doggett had been assigned to the X-files and you hadn't taken maternity leave yet. No openings - at least, officially.  I got assigned to another division for about two seconds before the Bureau and I had a difference of opinion and I was removed from the FBI payroll.  I didn't go back to work until Skinner approached me about a position with the ISU recently."

 

"We were partners." It took a few tries before she worked up to the question he knew was coming. "You said you left and came back... Did it have to do with William? With me being pregnant?"

 

He set the field report aside and leaned forward, interlacing his fingers. "In a way, but not like you're imagining. Last April, I went to Bellefleur, Oregon investigating a, a- Investigating a group we believed was affiliated with the one that later took you. You weren't feeling well, so you stayed in D.C. You'd been dizzy, queasy, tired, but neither of us put two and two together. I called you from the motel, wanting to know what the doctor said, but you never answered. That evening I walked into the woods outside Bellefleur and, like you, vanished off the face of the planet. The next time I laid eyes on you, six months had passed. I woke in an ICU in Baltimore, and you were a couple of weeks from giving birth."

 

"What happened to you during those six months?"

 

"Bad things," he answered.

 

"You don't want to tell me?"

 

"No, I don't."

 

The sides of the teakettle creaked as it heated, and the steam from his coffee mug rose silently between them, dissolving into nothing.  From the tabletop, the gray bodies in the glossy photos stared up at them with lifeless eyes.

 

"Did I find you?"

 

"No, you- You couldn't. There were complications with your pregnancy. You had to make a choice, Scully - whether to put yourself and the baby at risk by searching for me or keep the baby safe and let me go."

 

She looked at the tabletop, and he looked at the top of her head. "So I let you go," she said quietly.

 

"You wanted a child so much-"

 

"And you didn't." She picked at the sleeve of her bathrobe.

 

"We have dangerous careers, Scully, and we've made a lot of dangerous enemies.  You and I - we each have enough issues to start our own weekly magazine. Together, we're spontaneous combustion.  And a slow, smoldering burn.  And a disaster worthy of The Red Cross."

 

She glanced up at him, and down again.

 

"But that doesn't mean I didn't want a child," he continued after several seconds. "At first I wanted him for you - because I loved you and you wanted a baby.  After your abduction, I wanted him because he was a link to you. William was the last part of you I could hold against me and keep safe. You gave me every chance to walk away. Honestly, I did the right thing for all the wrong reasons, but it doesn't change the fact I did it. Now you're back..."

 

"Partially, at least." She ducked her head as if embarrassed. "I guess I owe you about five months of back child support."

 

"God, Scully, you don't owe me anything," he said hoarsely, the dam inside him cracking. "You told me once, before William was born, I gave you a gift. Maybe I did, but you can't imagine the one you've given me in return. The things I thought mattered in my life - they pale next to the two of you."

 

She looked up, her face inches from his, her shining eyes deep and blue.  Either he moved forward or she did or they both did, because his mouth met hers- tentatively at first, then as an invited guest.  Her lips felt soft, her breath warm against his skin, and her mouth tasted milky and sweet, like the last traces of hot chocolate coaxed from the bottom of the cup. His entire body exhaled, relaxing. He stood in a river, feeling the power of the current against his body and, for a few seconds, against his better judgment, let the force take him where it would. 

 

Mulder pulled back before she did. He rubbed his wet lips together as his eyes darted over her face. "I dreamed of you," he whispered. "Every night. Like you dreamed of me."

 

She blinked. Reality returned and settled over him like a chill.

 

"Sorry," he mumbled, and sat back. 

 

He picked up a random report and stared blankly at the sea of type until he felt her hand on his. He looked over the top of the report.

 

She gave him an uncertain smile. "Don't be."

 

He used a half-hearted grin to cover up the secrets he carried like concealed weapons.  The dull ache of want pulsed inside him, mixing with a few angry, illogical twinges from old wounds half-healed. It made no sense to resent her for things she couldn't remember. This wasn't the same Scully; his forebrain understood. His ego - the insecure little troll with abandonment issues who lived under the bridge between his brain and his heart - was sleep-deprived and slower to catch on.

 

"You're tired. You need to rest. Why don't you go to bed?" he suggested softly. "I can save the world solo tonight."

 

"Okay."

 

As if on unsteady autopilot, she got up and made her way toward the dark bedroom, leaving him alone to break bread with the dead. Behind him, the pressure built inside the teakettle while her teacup waited on the kitchen counter, empty.

  

****

 

Scully treated her apartment like a crime scene, piecing together the evidence left behind by a woman she wasn't, but bore a remarkable resemblance to.  Like any good agent, she searched her desk drawers and closet shelves for clues, and brought Mulder the remains of her life for positive identification.

 

Some questions he could answer: a tarnished dog tag, his nameplate from the X-files office, a handmade fabric doll, an old baseball, and a trio of receipts from a Pizza Hut in the American heartland with the purple ink faded to barely legible.  But most mementos Mulder could only guess at the significance of: a mysteriously fused penny and dime, a movie stub from a movie he'd never seen - perhaps a remnant of a hiccup in the space-time continuum from a case, perhaps the last matinee she saw with Melissa.

 

Dana Scully wasn't satisfied with 'perhaps,' and Mulder didn't expect her to be. The scientist in her wanted definitive answers.

 

The I in FBI. 

 

Mulder loved her, he loved his son, and there were dark forces - her religious cultists, his elusive Them - working to bring about the end of the world. As soon as he figured out the truth beyond that, he'd tell her. Then they'd both know.

 

****

 

Outside her apartment, the sky shifted from mottled gray to deep sapphire, with the first stars appearing between the clouds.  A storm had washed the city clean, scouring the grime from the sidewalk and the smog from the air.  In its aftermath, streams flowed from gutters and down spouts. A cool breeze rustled the leaves, shaking the last droplets free. 

 

"Which way?" she asked as they reached the end of her block, venturing out for an evening walk.

 

"Up to you," he responded, letting her set the pace.

 

Rather than crossing the street, she turned left, and he and William followed. Mulder pushed the stroller as they walked slowly, side-by-side but not touching. 

 

"I've been wondering about something," Scully said as they ambled along, skirting the puddles. "What should I call you?"

 

"It depends on whether I'm in or out of your good graces. There's 'Damn it, Mulder' and 'Stop that, Mulder' and 'Shut up, Mulder' and 'Are you insane, Mulder?' You use the last one a lot."

 

"No, I'm serious. What are we?"

 

"I'm not sure I understand the question."

 

"We have a baby together. We're friends. We used to be partners. I was wondering what we are now."

 

"Ah," he said rather than a real answer.

 

"I- I'm getting stronger, feeling better. After all I've missed, I want things to get back to normal. I suppose what I'm asking is: what is 'normal,' for us."

  

Mulder inhaled. He breathed the clean scent of ozone deep into his lungs and bought some time before he spoke. "Normal, for us, is complicated, Scully."

 

He turned his head, watching their reflection in the windows of the brick townhouses. He saw an attractive upper-middle class couple wearing blue jeans - he in a sweatshirt, her in a T-shirt and cardigan - taking their son for a stroll. They looked remarkably ordinary, given some distance and the right vantage point.

 

"And, there's William," he added.

 

"And there's William," she agreed.

 

"You'd talked about going back to work at Quantico," he said, though the question he answered wasn't the one she'd asked. "Teaching part-time.  I'm in my office at the ISU Tuesdays and Thursdays.  If you taught Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, we wouldn't need for your mother to watch the baby."

  

"I think the licensing board and the Bureau might take issue with me not remembering any of the continuing education courses I've attended in the last nine years."

 

"But you attended them."

 

"The licensing board won't see it that way."

 

"Oh," he responded.

 

The jogging stroller's rubber wheels hummed against the wet sidewalk. The streetlights came on and glowed white against the sky as day rolled on into night.

 

"I want my life back, Mulder," she said eventually.

 

"I know. I guess my question is: which life?"

 

"Mine. Ours. Good or bad. You're an FBI profiler and you know me better than I know me. I wish you'd answer me instead of hedging and talking in circles."

 

Mulder stopped. He kept one hand on the stroller as he leaned back against the brick stoop of an upscale apartment building.

 

"The first time was a mistake," he said without looking at her. "My mother committed suicide, I was out of my head and you were trying to bring me back. I needed something warm and real to hold onto, and I guess you misread that. I guess. I don't know. We never talked about it."

 

He toyed with the foam padding on the stroller handle as he watched the baby.

 

"What about the second time?" she prompted. "Was it a mistake, too?"

 

"No. That night was..." He tasted the words on his lips before he released them. "Wild and passionate and perhaps ill-considered. But it was real. Then I was gone."

 

A car rolled past. Its tires splashed slowly through the potholes as its wipers cleared away a few stray drops from the windshield.

 

"A few days after William was born, I came over to your apartment to visit, stayed to help out, and never left. Six weeks later, you were gone. What are we?  Best friends, ex-partners, marginal lovers, and soul mates filing separately. I'd kill for you, no questions asked, Scully, but I'll fight to the death if you try to take William away from me. Do I love you? With all my heart and soul, in this lifetime and the next. Did you love me? I can't answer for you."

 

"I think you can."

 

He exhaled. "Yeah, I probably can. But that was then, and this is now."

 

He watched the water flow down the edge of the street, toward the storm drain. In his peripheral vision, Mulder saw her look up at him, wanting the truth. "You left, Scully. You made a reckless deal with Kersh without telling me, and, less than forty-eight hours later, you vanished. I had no idea what we were or what I was supposed to do about William. I know it wasn't your fault you were abducted, but..."

 

"But I hurt you," she finished for him. "I hurt you badly."

 

"But you don't remember," he said, correcting her, his words coming faster. "I know your reasons, Scully, but you don't. I remember all the fears and things left unsaid and late nights and promises and regrets between us leading you to make the decision. I wish you could remember why you put yourself at risk for my sake, and I could be angry at you because yes - yes, you hurt me badly."

                

The breeze blew her hair, and her face looked pale and tired, as it had the gray January morning last year when she met with Skinner and Kersh.

 

"You don't remember me," he said after a long pause. "You don't remember us, and I don't want you to act out of obligation. I know you want your life back, but this isn't the life you chose; it's the one you woke up to. You're right; we don't work together anymore. We aren't married. If it weren't for William... I'm not sure I can give you the life you wanted. In fact, I know I can't. I can't be something I'm not, even for you."

 

"I don't want you to be," she responded.

 

"You do. You-" He ran his lower lip between his teeth before biting it. "You did. You said being with me was like falling, and eventually, logically, you would hit the ground. You said you needed a foundation and I couldn't give you one."

 

She looked up at him and considered a moment before she spoke. She sounded logical, as if she'd examined all the current evidence and come to a conclusion as she said, "I don't feel like I'm falling."

 

He took a breath and his voice dropped an octave. "That's, that's good."

 

"What do you want?" she asked after a pause. "You seem focused on what I want; what is it you want, Mulder?"

      

"For you to be safe," he answered. "To be safe and to have what you want out of life.  I want William to never have to be afraid.  Guaranteeing those things, though, for us, takes more than dual air bags, outlet covers, and good financial planning."

 

Cars passed on the street and a young couple walked past, hand in hand, glancing down to admire the baby.

 

Scully continued looking up at Mulder, but her arms crossed and her head tilted. "As your partner," she said with a mixture of amusement and frustration. "Or lover. Or trying to agree on pizza toppings - what technique did I use to extract a straight answer from you? Thumb screws? Sodium pentothal? Brownies?"

 

"Once, you did make excellent brownies," he quipped. "Once, you shot me."

 

"I did not shoot you. That never happened."

 

In answer, Mulder pulled aside the neck of his sweatshirt to reveal the old scar.

 

She re-adjusted her arms across her chest. "Here's what I've learned in the last few weeks: you are a remarkable profiler, Mulder. You use minute details from the past to predict future behavior, and you do it better than anyone I've ever encountered. You are passionate about solving crimes, righting wrongs, saving people; I think it must be encoded in your DNA."

 

"You might be surprised at what's encoded in my DNA."

 

Scully continued as if he hadn't spoken. "Passion and commitment radiate from you like the detonation zone from a bomb. It can overwhelm or consume everything in its path. Focused on an individual – especially on a woman you know and love – it glows white-hot. Logically, it takes an equal and opposite force to withstand that love. If I was your partner for all those years, shared my life with you, shared my bed with you, had a child with you... Mulder, I think it's safe to assume I loved you as much as you love me. Differently, but with equal force. But you couldn't save me, and I couldn't save you. Now, you can't give me back the past – our past – and without a common past you can't predict our future. You don't know, and you can't bear to admit to me you don't know. To you, you’re failing me again."

 

Mulder felt like a specimen under examination. "That's not-"

 

"You have scars," she observed next. "Scars you won't talk about."

 

He tried to stay clean-shaven, but sometimes forgot between the landslide of profiles and William's schedule and Scully's appointments. The scar on his chest and the ones on his wrists and ankles were faint, but if Mulder's face got stubbly, the scars on his cheeks showed. However, he doubted the brilliant Dr. Scully meant exclusively the scars on his face.

 

"You've experienced pain you don't think I can understand."

 

"No," he corrected quickly, before her dissertation on his psyche continued. "I've experienced pain I don't want you to understand. You've suffered and lost so much because of your commitment to me. If you don't have to remember, I don't want you to."

 

"I'm not a child, Mulder."

 

"I know you're not a child. You're an FBI agent and a medical doctor and you look better naked than any woman has a right to. I'm well-aware you aren't a child. You are, however-" He faltered. "I can't give you exact coordinates, but you are roughly the center of my universe. I thought I'd never see you alive again. No, I can't change the past or predict the future, but forgive the hell out of me if I want to protect you now."

 

Scully started to speak. Instead, she took his hand. She stepped up to the lowest step of the stoop so they stood eye to eye. In the stroller, William babbled to himself, and the evening breeze rustled Scully's hair again. 

 

Mulder exhaled, still feeling exposed and embarrassed. He tried to sort through the tangle of thoughts and emotions inside him and pluck out the right thing to say; he only managed to pull the snare tighter.

 

"So where do we go from here?" she asked.

 

Mulder smirked. "The last time you asked me, I told you we had all the time in the world."

 

"We still do," she responded quietly.

 

Her fingers felt warm and alive against his. After a second, she stepped forward and laid her head against his chest. Beneath his shirt, his heart beat against her cheek, sending out a slow SOS in Morse code.  Letting go of the stroller, he cupped the back of her head with his palm and closed his eyes. 

 

The sounds of the city continued around them: tires on wet pavement, the water flowing past, and the breeze blowing the tree leaves up to reveal their pale underbelly. She stayed a long moment and stepped back. As she did, he tucked her hair behind her ear, letting his fingers linger on her cheek too long to pass as accidental.

 

She smiled.

 

"My Magic 8 Ball says 'reply hazy, try again,'" he told her. "It's the best answer I have."

 

Behind her head, the last of the clouds had thinned and parted, allowing the stars to shine in the space where the storm broke and rolled back.

 

"You could stay home with William for a while," he offered. "Get better.  Get to know him.  And me.  We could go from there."

 

"I'd like that."

 

"Okay," he said as if they negotiated a complex business deal.

 

He held her hand as she stepped down from the stoop but let go so he could push the stroller as she walked beside him.

 

Never one to let romantic ideology muddy scientific facts for long, they passed two apartment buildings before Scully informed him, "Mulder, you do know there is no center to the universe, right? It doesn't exist. The universe is ever-expanding. Moreover, there's even significant disagreement among astrophysicists over whether Ophiuchus or a super-massive black hole is at the center of our own galaxy."

 

"Well, they're all wrong," he assured her. "How many of these astrophysicists have seen you naked?"

 

"Within the timeframe I can remember? Nine or so," she deadpanned.

 

"All fools," he pronounced the non-existent scientists disdainfully.

 

He heard her chuckle. The sound smoothed out a pain inside him, and the fresh air felt easier to breathe.

 

They walked on, neither of them speaking again until they reached the end of the block.  She stopped, as did he. He waited, thinking she was getting tired.

 

"Which way?" she asked.

 

He'd forgotten: she didn't remember her own neighborhood. "If you turn left again, we'll go around the block and end up right back where we started.  Or, if you feel like walking farther, turn right and we can stop for ice cream."

 

She turned right, and he and William followed, taking the long way home.

 

****

 

Among her many, many pearls of parenting wisdom, Mrs. Scully had informed Mulder bathing a baby in the sink was extremely unsanitary.  She hadn't specified extremely unsanitary for the baby or the sink. So far, William didn't appear any worse for wear.  Mulder couldn't vouch for Scully's kitchen sink.

 

"It's for you," Scully said, and passed him the cordless phone. "I think it's that weird little man again," she added impassively before she returned to wiping baby food off the kitchen table.

 

Mulder cradled the receiver between his ear and his shoulder as he kept a tight grip on the baby. "Give it a rest, Romeo," he advised the caller. "Juliet has a quick temper and excellent aim."

 

"The alluring Agent Scully hasn't yet recalled her love for me," Melvin Frohike's voice responded with certainty.

 

"Is there a reason you called, Frohike, or did you run out of people to creep out in Baltimore? Is 'Star Trek: Voyager' not on tonight?"

 

"The series finale aired last week; I e-mailed you three times to come over. I made Rice Krispy treats." Frohike answered.

 

Mulder didn't bother to respond.

 

"We recorded it for you," Frohike assured him. "In somewhat related news, are you still interested in a cloning lab?"

 

"Why?" Mulder asked slowly.

 

"Because, without Seven of Nine to distract me, I found it."

 

Mulder glanced over his shoulder at Scully, who didn't seem to be paying attention. "Keep talking," he said into the receiver, cautiously. 

 

"The Omega Center for Reproductive Medicine is located outside Philadelphia. Langly and I did a little creative interfacing with their database this morning, Mulder.  The records you discovered at The Lombard Research Facility of the MUFON women who'd supposedly undergone fertility treatment: The Omega Center has them on file.  Ditto Agent Scully's in-vitro and first- and second-trimester records from Zeus Genetics."

 

"You think everything was transferred there?"

 

"That's my guess," Frohike said. "The scope of the project must have narrowed, because there don't seem to be any other clinics."

 

William splashed in the sink, sloshing warm water on the front of Mulder's shirt.  The TV in the living room was tuned to some nature documentary, and the dishwasher hummed beside him.  Scully still wiped strained green beans off the kitchen table. The mail lay on the counter, where he'd dropped it after his morning run: several couriered packages from the ISU for Mulder and a letter from the medical board for Scully. A postcard reminded Mulder the Volvo needed an oil change. The grocery list indicated they needed diapers, coffee, apples, and trash bags.

 

A semi-normal life. Fragile, handle with care. 

 

Minor imperfections may occur.

 

"You're sure?" Mulder asked.

 

"Are we ever not sure?" Frohike responded self-righteously.

 

****

 

A fresh spit-up stain on Mulder's shoulder marred his head-to-toe black covert-ops ensemble. He wiped off as much as possible and dabbed at the spot with a wet washcloth half-heartedly. At some point on his crusade, Spooky Mulder reached the stage where vomit didn't automatically render a garment unwearable.

 

"You know, Hugo and Giorgio should send me condolence cards," he told Scully as she entered the bedroom, carrying the baby. "Hugo Boss and Giorgio Armani," he added. "We used to be close."

 

She shifted William to one hip as she watched Mulder in front of the bathroom mirror. "It's not coming out?"

 

He gave the stain one last dab, tossed the washcloth in the laundry hamper, and left the bathroom. "Well, I wouldn't feel fully dressed anymore without baby puke."

 

She didn't respond, but Mulder felt her watching him as he fastened his watch and shrugged on his jacket.

 

"What?" he asked, feeling self-conscious.

 

"I'm used to seeing you in suits or jeans. I was thinking tonight you look..." She hunted for the right word. "Different."

 

His nondescript black jeans, shirt, boots, and leather jacket were veterans of a hundred expeditions to places he wasn't supposed to be, but new to Scully. "Good different or bad different?"

 

Again, she paused before she answered. "Dangerous different."

 

"You're discovered my secret identity: mild-mannered G-man father by day, crime-fighting, world-saving superhero by night," he quipped. For the third time in the last ten minutes, he asked, "You're sure you'll be okay with him?"

 

"I'm a medical doctor," she reminded him, and added, "Who is well on her way to being able to practice again."

 

"Able to practice cutting up dead people," Mulder teased. "Those skills have no relevance here. In fact, your medical skill-set is the antithesis of comforting."

 

One-handed, with the baby on her hip, Scully opened the top drawer of her nightstand and retrieved her Smith & Wesson. Holding it like an old acquaintance, she informed him, "Top of my class at Quantico. Is that comforting?"

 

"It is. Put on a pair of high heels and see if you could comfort me even more."

 

She rolled her eyes and put the pistol away. "We'll be fine," Scully assured him. "Go. Enjoy an evening with your friends. You fellows don't dress up in the Spock ears, do you?"

 

"Two of us don't." He paused awkwardly. "’Star Trek Voyager’ isn't a great show, but it's cumulative; the finale won't make sense without having watched all six seasons. I'll get you the box sets: ‘Voyager,’ ‘Deep Space Nine,’ and the last couple seasons of ‘The Next Generation.’ Deanna Troi ends up with Riker," he assured her. "Humanity was saved."

 

"Probably by Deanna Troi's plunging necklines." She repeated, "Mulder, we'll be fine. Go. Have a good time."

 

He kept waiting for Scully to realize something was amiss. Between her mental algorithm of his past ditching behavior and women's intuition, her spidey sense should be tingling. His old partner would confiscate his car keys or invite herself along or at least raise an eyebrow.

 

Scully held a silly, one-sided conversation with William about her SAT scores and medical license, mocking Mulder for worrying about them. The baby looked up at her with wide-eyed bewilderment.

 

"Okay," Mulder managed. "I'm going." Mulder leaned down to kiss the top of William's silky head. "Bye. Love you, Buddy."

 

"Muh," William responded with his cheek against Scully's shoulder.  It was his one-word solution for everything - an amalgamation of 'Grandma' and 'Mulder.' William didn't have a word for Scully yet, or any memory of her before the last six weeks.

 

A lump rose in Mulder's throat. He swallowed determinedly, forcing it back down. "He's a special little guy.  You take good care of him, okay? Keep him safe."

 

"I will.  We'll be fine," Scully promised him again.

 

"I know you will."

 

The things he wanted to tell her multiplied inside his head. He wanted to convey he was happy and had no regrets. She was the star he steered by, and if the course led him here… This was right.

 

She put her free hand on his wrist and his chest as if trying to reassure him. His heart beat rapidly under her palm.

 

Scully said something comforting, and he managed a monosyllabic lie.

 

Mulder told himself he'd kiss her quickly and go. Just go; they'd be fine. But her mouth opened under his, drawing him deeper. As his eyes closed and his lips parted, time lapsed from memory. 

 

He slid his fingers through her hair, down her neck, and along the underside of her jaw. Electricity crackled between them, visible in its intensity. Warmth pooled in his belly and spread through his body like a shot of dark rum - the internal combustion of a man's heart dangerously entangled in a woman's body. 

 

The easiest thing in the world would be to stay with her. With them. To call The Gunmen and say the evening was off. To let someone else fight the future. He and Scully could take their son, pack up the Volvo, and head somewhere west of the sunset until the day the heavens fell and mankind discovered he was not alone.

 

Mulder broke off the kiss. He rested his forehead against hers for a moment with his eyes still closed. "I gotta go," he reminded himself.

 

"Okay," she responded softly.

 

Scully adjusted the lapel of his jacket and stepped back, running her tongue over her wet lips.

  

"I'll see you later," he promised as he picked up his car keys.

 

She smiled as she held William. "We'll see you then."

 

****

 

On the outside, The Omega Center for Reproductive Medicine mimicked hundreds of new office buildings across America.  The building was shiny black, all glass and modern, with razor-sharp angles surrounded by a manicured lawn and bland landscaping. The rear parking lot bordered the woods, with picnic tables provided for employees who liked to lunch outside.  A rent-a-cop car made a loop through the front parking lot every few minutes, rolling diagonally across the empty spaces.  One bored-looking security guard sat at the desk in the lobby. Another made the rounds, checked the doors, and stepped outside for a smoke break.

 

Inside, according to The Gunmen, sat the remains of fifty years of the consortium's genetic research.

 

"Just like old times," Byers said as Mulder fitted the earpiece into place and lowered the microphone.

 

Over the headset, Mulder heard Langly sniping with Frohike as they worked on disabling the building's complicated security system.  Langly and Frohike huddled in a storm drain several blocks away. Mulder and Byers had approached the building through the woods, using the trees and darkness as cover.

 

"Deja vu all over again," Mulder agreed blandly. "You ready, boys?"

 

"We will be if Do-hicky can keep his wires straight," Langly's voice responded. "Okay. We've looped the security cameras and we're working on the status monitors.  There aren't any external motion sensors, so you can start moving."

 

Byers waited in the trees as a lookout, but Mulder scrambled two-dozen feet from the tree line to the first picnic table. He waited for the patrol car to pass and slipped out of the shadows again. Once Mulder reached the second table, he crouched behind the metal trashcan beside it and watched the back door. The blinking red light on the digital keypad beside the employees' entrance indicated the security system remained on.

 

He waited, feeling strangely calm for a man about to open Pandora's box.

 

"Hey Mulder," Frohike's disembodied voice said. "You got company at three o'clock."

 

Mulder looked to his right, and spotted Agent Doggett approaching through the shadows. "What the hell are you doing here?" he hissed, as Doggett got close.

 

"I'm supposed to watch the building to make sure you don't have a poltergasm, do something stupid, and get yourself killed," Doggett responded in a terse whisper. "What are you doing here?"

 

"A little after-hours investigating."

 

The light on the keypad switched from red to green.

 

"Go," Frohike's voice commanded. Mulder sprinted across the parking lot for the building.

 

"Hey!" he heard Doggett call after him. 

 

The door opened as Mulder pulled the handle. To his disgust, Doggett slipped inside after him like a stubborn shadow.

 

"This doesn't concern you," Mulder said as he waited for The Gunmen to get the next door open. "Turn around and go home while you still can."

 

"What do you think you're doin'?"

 

"I'm saving the world, Agent Doggett. Haven't you heard?" Mulder said as a second security door buzzed softly and the lock clicked open.

 

The main corridor was sterile white: the floor, the walls, the ceiling. Small blue placards on the doors identified the rooms: Exam 1, Exam 2, Restroom, Janitor, Private.  His and Doggett's footsteps echoed on the polished floor, the only sounds besides the drone of the air conditioning system and the hum of the florescent lights.

 

"Somebody talk to me," Mulder requested. He spoke to the tiny microphone attached to his earpiece and ignored Doggett following him. "Where am I going?"

 

"Last door on your left," Frohike's voice responded.

 

Doggett stayed at his heels as Mulder made his way down the hall, keeping low and close to the wall.  The rooms they passed were examination rooms, the doors left ajar to reveal paper-covered tables with stainless steel stirrups and standard OB/GYN equipment.

 

The door Frohike guided him to unlocked, and opened to a large, dark laboratory. Mulder saw glass-front refrigerators, microscopes, centrifuges, and a collection of complicated-looking medical equipment he didn't recognize.  Safety glasses hung on a rack beside the entrance, along with a row of white lab coats.  He noted computer workstations, boxes of latex gloves, even a few family photos scattered around.

 

"This isn't it," Mulder told the microphone. "This is a regular lab."

 

"Keep moving," Langly's voice advised. "The storage room is dead-center of the building. The entrance should be about fifty feet in front of you."

 

As his eyes adjusted to the low light, Mulder saw it: what looked like the door to a walk-in freezer.  He opened it. Yellow light and cold air swirled out.  Inside, the long vault was brightly lit, and rows of polished steel safe deposit boxes lined the walls.

 

"Deja vu all over again," Mulder repeated to himself as the hair on the back of his neck prickled.

 

"What is this?" Doggett asked.

 

The door eased closed behind them, sounding eerily alien as the latch clicked back into place

 

Mulder swallowed dryly. "Human ova.  Collected from abductees to further the government's illegal cloning experiments."

 

He pushed the button on the first drawer. It slid open smoothly and revealed small, chilled test tubes. Each was labeled with a woman's name and a date during her abduction. 

 

Brennan, Linda, 03/21/99 - likely one of the last women subjected to the super-ovulation procedure before the original members of the Consortium went up in flames. 

 

Mulder left the drawer open and moved deeper into the room, encountering Hagopian, Betsy, 11/11/94.

 

He stopped at the drawer labeled Scully, Dana, 10/29/94.  He pressed the button and the drawer opened silently, displaying the familiar rows of vials.

 

Beside him, the gleaming storage units continued on, stretching back for decades. All the drawers were labeled with the names of women unfortunate enough to fit a certain genetic profile. All the women had been left sterile, and all, except Scully, were dead.

 

"You sure it's ova, Agent Mulder?" Doggett asked.

 

"Yeah, I'm sure," Mulder responded tersely.

 

He glanced over to see Doggett scanning the first column of drawers on the opposite side of the vault. "'Cause your name's on this one. Right below Dana's."

 

"No, Scully's back here."

 

"Scully, Dana, April 3, 2001," Doggett read aloud. "Mulder, Fox, July 18, 2000. That was during your abduction, wasn't it?"

 

"Yeah."

 

A chill went through Mulder, the involuntary shiver of visceral memory of drills and metal pins. Screaming for Scully and praying for Death and knowing neither would come soon enough.

 

"It's starting again," Mulder realized. "Agent Reyes was right.  The project - it's starting over."

 

"If they're tryin' to clone human beings here, we need to get a warrant."

 

"By the time we get a warrant, everything in this building will have mysteriously vanished. You should know by now, Agent Doggett. Also, they're not trying to clone anyone; they're trying to create a viable child immune to the alien virus. They're trying to find a way to fight the coming plague."

 

"Wasn't that what William was supposed to be?"

 

"Yeah. Well, if at first you don't succeed..."

 

Mulder stared over Agent Doggett's shoulder, at the drawer labeled with his name, and at Scully's name. The pressure built at the base of his brain.

 

Mulder slid his arm between the wall of the vault and the first cryo-storage unit and pulled the electrical plug out of the socket, disconnecting the power supply. He knew from experience the unfertilized ova were fragile; if they warmed even a few degrees, they became nonviable.  He wasn't sure the ova he'd found in the Lombard Research Facility had been viable in the first place - not for normal human fertilization. Perhaps Dr. Parenti lied to Scully from the beginning, and all those months of drugs and doctor's appointments and waiting and heartbreak had been for nothing.

 

"What are you doin,' Agent Mulder?"

 

Ignoring Doggett, Mulder fished his pocketknife out and cut the plug off the cord. He went to the next unit, and the next, repeating the simple process. Once all the units were useless, there was a strange stillness - no gunshots, no explosions or sirens or super-soldiers or even a tractor beam. Mulder heard nothing but satisfying silence as the fruits of fifty years of medical rape melted away.

 

"Mulder," Langly's voice said in his ear. "Whatever you did, it set off a zone alarm. You have company headed your way. Get out of there."

 

A red light flashed on the keypad beside the vault door, indicating a security breech.

 

"Time to go," he told Doggett. Mulder led the way out of the vault and back into the dark laboratory.

 

Heavy footsteps approached in the main hallway, not seeming in any particular hurry.

 

"Talk to me, Frohike," Mulder whispered.

 

"Opposite end of the lab," Frohike's voice responded. "I don't know what it is, but I'm unlocking the door."

 

With Doggett still following, Mulder did the hundred-yard dash to the other side of the laboratory.  The keypad on the door flashed red as they approached, but as Mulder put his hand on the latch, it switched to green.  He and Doggett made it through and closed the door. The latch clicked back into place as the door from the main hall to the laboratory opened and the security guard entered.

 

Mulder braced his hands on his knees, catching his breath. Doggett crouched beside him. On the wall, the keypad flashed red again as the door locked electronically.  Hopefully, the guard would assume whatever room they'd darted into was secure and wouldn't check it.

 

They waited until the footsteps faded and the door to the hall closed as the guard returned to the lobby.

 

"A poltergasm?" Mulder asked, as his heart rate returned to normal. 

 

Doggett shrugged one shoulder. "Monica watches ‘Buffy.’ I don't watch it or anything, but she has it on."

 

"Is Agent Reyes the one who called you?"

 

Doggett nodded. "Your Gunmen friends called us. They didn't tell you?"

 

"No, they must have forgotten to mention it."

 

Mulder heard a guilty silence in his earpiece before Frohike's voice, sounding defensive. "Well, you did tell us to call them if we found the lab. Forgive me for coming between you and your death wish."

 

"Frohike, get me out of here so I can kick your ass."

 

"Working on that right now," Langly responded.

 

While he waited, Mulder straightened and adjusted his headset as he looked around the room. He stopped with his hand in mid-air. 

 

A grid work of low, black pipes crisscrossed the dark ceiling. Wires and tubes descended into tanks of murky yellow fluid.  Beside each tank was a computer, the screen displaying data corresponding to whatever was inside.

 

Frohike and Langly argued in his earpiece and Doggett talked about something, but their voices faded to background noise.

 

The project wasn't just implanting fertilized eggs into unsuspecting women during in vitro. They'd created hybrids as well, preparing to grow them in these modern wombs for rent, with a mechanical drone for a lullaby and vats of chemicals for mother's milk. The plan must be to keep throwing permutations of his and Scully's DNA together and whatever didn't die would become fodder for more experiments.

 

Flashes of Dr. Parenti's deformed fetuses appeared on the mirror of his mind, and images of Scully's first child - the little girl she'd elected to release from pain rather than try to save.  Mulder remembered Scully, hugely pregnant, exhausted, and terrified the world was out to get whatever being she carried inside her.  Mulder recalled being afraid to look at William, even once he realized the baby was alive, terrified of what he might see. A tumbleweed of fear still rolled through him whenever the pediatrician mentioned William had reached a milestone early or commented on how bright and unusually healthy the baby seemed. It never ended. Eyes watched them from the shadows and ears listened on the phone, posing some ill-defined, omnipresent threat to the three of them.

 

As Mulder looked at the cloudy tanks, the anger inside him boiled down, cooled, and solidified into something dangerous. The importance of things became starkly clear. The clutter of facts and theories in his mind disappeared, and his world simplified into two words. No more.

 

No more experiments. No more nightmares. No more abductions or chips or lies within lies.

 

No more.

 

He had a simple dream, not so different from the one he'd had most of his adult life - for him and the people he loved to be able to look up at the stars without fear.

 

He found a metal box on the wall containing a rolled-up fire hose and an ax. Mulder jerked the door open and pulled the ax out. The fire alarm sounded. Emergency lights started to strobe.

 

"What the hell are you doin'?" Doggett demanded yet again.

 

Mulder swung the ax hard at the first tank. Glass shattered. Yellow fluid gushed out onto the floor. He turned, adjusted his grip, and smashed the one across from it as if hitting a home run. In the dim melee of glass and wires, Mulder couldn't tell if there was a form immersed in the liquid. In truth, he didn't care.

 

He cleared some tables as well, smashing a tray of glass vials and two beakers of amber fluid against one wall. As Purity Control bled down to the floor, something reacted with something and began to smoke. It ignited. Yellow flames retraced the wet path up the wall. They spread across the ceiling and reflected on the liquid on the floor.

 

Soaked to the skin in foul-smelling liquid, Mulder readied for bat against the sixth tank. Ten or so to go.

 

Doggett stopped yelling they had to go, grabbed the ax, and jerked Mulder toward one of the emergency exits.

 

The hybrids' amniotic fluid sloshed out onto the pavement as Doggett shoved the security door open, setting off a new round of alarms. Behind them, the hungry flames spread through the laboratory. In the distance, police sirens and John Byers approached. In Mulder's ear, The Gunmen's voices were frantic.

 

Mulder felt far removed from it all, like he watched everything from outside his body. Given a choice, he’d stay and watch it burn.

 

Maslow would call it a peak experience: a man meets Destiny at the crossroads and becomes one with something infinite.  A moment of pre-apocalyptic Zen. The inexplicable certainty he'd done the right thing, and somewhere, some higher power guarded the light at the end of the tunnel.

 

What those men did to Scully, to him - it would never happen again. To anyone. If the aliens returned and humanity fell, so be it, but the experiments on innocent people stopped tonight. Humanity should be the polar opposite of torture, or they all deserved to die.

 

Mulder saw a full-size fleet sedan waiting in the back parking lot, the lights off, the motor running, and the door to the backseat open.

 

"Get in," Deputy Director Skinner ordered from behind the wheel. "Jesus, Mulder.  What the hell did you do?"

 

Agent Reyes sat in the passenger seat, looking over her shoulder anxiously.

 

Doggett jumped in and yanked Mulder after him. Byers crowded in last and slammed the car door closed.  The unmarked Ford lurched forward. As they pulled away, the building exploded in an impressive fireball, sending orange flames high into the night sky.  The two security guards stood in the parking lot, staring bewilderedly at the fire, while the third guard arrived belatedly in the rent-a-cop car.

 

"Yeah, I think that was specifically what I was not supposed to let you do, Agent Mulder," Doggett commented angrily.

 

The big Ford sped toward the back exit of the parking lot and emerged from the trees onto the main road. As they approached the interstate, Skinner turned the headlights on and slowed, blending into the sparse, late-night traffic. A moment later, The Gunmen's old VW bus merged into traffic behind Skinner.

 

On the other side of the highway, two police cars and a fire engine wailed by. A news crew followed, on their way to cover the latest 'abortion clinic bombing.'

 

As Skinner drove north, Mulder turned, ignoring the angry barrage of questions. He watched the flames grow smaller, like a movie fading to black.

 

****

 

Mulder checked in with The Gunmen, retrieved his car, and made it back to Georgetown by half-past-three in the morning.  Scully's apartment was dark and quiet, far removed from the murky, post-modern Hell he'd left a few hours ago.  He saw an empty baby bottle on the night stand, next to a stack of their early reports he'd brought home for her to review.  The flukeman, the Atlantic City beast woman, Tooms, Boggs: all old friends for her to reacquaint herself with. Scully and the baby lay on her bed, her hand on William's belly as they slept.

 

Mulder peeled off his wet jeans and shirt and stuffed them in a plastic bag, which he buried deep in the kitchen trash. In the shower, as he washed off the smell of smoke and death, he noticed shallow cuts on his forearms, likely incurred during his fire ax rampage among the hybrid tanks. He rinsed off, dried off, slipped on an old pair of pajama bottoms, and studied his stubbly, faintly-scarred face in the foggy bathroom mirror.

 

The cold rage he'd felt in The Omega Center faded, and between Philadelphia and Georgetown, his insides stopped shivering. As adrenaline receded and weariness set in, a sense of peace settled over him again.

 

All the answers he'd hoped to find had been in the laboratory, and he'd destroyed them without a second thought. Open Pandora's box, let the demons out and, according to the myth, the only thing left inside was hope.

 

He paused beside Scully's bed and asked, "Is this all right?"  During the day, he laid down with William for afternoon naps, but Mulder and Scully still slept separately at night.

 

She nodded and scooted closer to William, making room.  She smelled like fabric softener and baby shampoo and rain, and her skin tasted like sea salt as he kissed her neck.

 

"Big night?" she mumbled sleepily.

 

"You can't possibly imagine," he whispered, curling up to her back.

 

As he put his arms around Scully's body and listened to William's soft breathing, Mulder felt the last of the glacier inside him melting away, the long winter coming to an end.

 

The truth he'd discovered wasn't the truth he'd set out to find more than a decade ago.  He'd begun chasing aliens, conspiracies, and his own personal demons, and ended up finding Scully, their son, and his destiny.

 

That year, the spring thaw came in early June.

 

****

 

"This," Mulder heard his own voice drone in a bad British accent, BBC documentary style, from the TV speakers, "Is William, alien child from the planet Winston Churchill. Resistance, apparently, is fertile."

 

Mulder opened his eyes and yawned. He shifted on the sofa so he could see the television.  Scully sat on the floor in front of him, amusing William while she manned the VCR remote control.  The morning sun streamed through the blinds, painting warm yellow stripes across the rug. 

 

On the television screen, the picture panned around her living room, and zoomed in on William's sleeping face in the bassinet. December 24, 2000, the timestamp on the videotape indicated. Christmas Eve. A Christmas tree stood beside Scully's fireplace, glowing with white lights and ornaments and topped with a lopsided tinfoil star. Mulder's hand appeared on the screen, adjusting the blanket over the baby as the camera rocked. At the time, his hand covered William's entire torso. The camera moved, capturing the creases of a tiny hand, the crescent of dark lashes against fair skin, and the full pink curve of the baby's mouth.

 

"Nine days old, William Scully is fully dependent on others for care and sustenance," his voice narrated melodramatically, sounding like Desmond Morris. "He is a small, somewhat pink, naked-skinned mammal.  His whole existence is geared toward survival: eat, sleep, defecate, and create an instinctive bond with his caretakers, ensuring they will protect him with their lives. He is, in short, remarkable. Miraculous.  Clearly, he resembles the alpha female who gave birth to him, but also shows similarities to the female's partner: a dark-haired, lanky, brooding male known 'Damn it, Mulder.' These similarities have yet to be discussed in any depth.  Regardless, the male diligently keeps watch while the female rests."

 

"What are you doing to him?" Scully's voice asked sleepily, off screen.

 

The picture blurred as Mulder turned and focused on Scully in the bedroom doorway. She wore her bathrobe and looked tousled but bemused.

 

"Filming the latest Mulder-Scully production," he responded. There was a barely noticeable, uncertain beat before he continued, "This is Scully, the dominant female.  Note the disheveled red hair, the stained robe, the annoyed crease between her brows reminding one she hasn't had caffeine in more than nine months."

 

"Is that on?" she asked, leaning against the doorjamb and eyeing the camera warily.

 

"No," his voice lied from behind the camera lens. "The male approaches warily, sensing danger-"

 

"It is on.  I can see the little red light blinking.  Damn it, Mulder - turn it off."

 

"This is not her mating stance," his British accent droned. "Her focus is on her young.  He is auxiliary - protecting the den, foraging for food and supplies.  She is the parent; he is support staff."

 

Scully's hand pushed away the lens, and the picture swung dizzyingly.  After a few seconds, the lens ended up pointed at her living room rug. He'd lowered the camera, but the tape continued recording.

 

"He's asleep," his disembodied voice said, the British accent gone. "You didn't miss anything."

 

"When did I get a Christmas tree?"

 

"I called, and The Gunmen brought one over.  I made the star on top," he said.

 

"I can tell."

 

"Do you like it?"

 

"I do. Thank you." The camera swayed again, focusing on the side of her sofa, and there the sound of her lips meeting his. "You aren't auxiliary," her voice reminded him. "You know that, don't you?"

 

"What am I?" He sounded as if he was joking, though he wasn't.

 

"You're very necessary. Come to bed, Mulder," she invited, her voice as rich and smooth as old cognac.

 

He responded softly, "Ooh-rah," and the footage swayed again before the television screen went dark.

 

In front of him, Scully picked up the remote control, and the VCR whirred as she rewound the tape.

 

"Everybody okay?" Mulder mumbled.

 

"We're fine," she responded, looking over her shoulder at him. "I have him."

 

"Umm," he said, yawning again. "I'm awake.  We need to get on the road soon," he reminded her, yet made no attempt at moving.

 

"It's barely eight o'clock.  You can sleep longer." She twisted to adjust the blanket over him, touching his forearm lightly. "You've cut yourself. Did this happen with those Gunmen people last night?"

 

"Um," he responded noncommittally.

 

"It looks like you crossed paths with some broken glass." 

 

"Um," Mulder repeated in agreement. Byers had briefed him on the series finale of ‘Star Trek Voyager,’ in case she asked. She didn't, though.

 

The VCR stopped whirring. After a few seconds, Mulder heard his voice droning, "This is William, alien child from the planet Winston Churchill. Resistance, apparently, is fertile."

 

She reached back for his hand and interlocked their fingers as she watched the tape again.

 

****

 

The saying was true - a man couldn't go home again. However, with the right connections, a little finagling, and a platinum Visa card, he could rent a place near to home for the summer.

 

They left Georgetown mid-morning, the Volvo's trunk packed, the gas tank full, and the road at their feet, so to speak. Four diaper changes, 2 fast-food meals, a ferry ride, and 500 miles later, they rolled to a stop at the end of a lonely gravel road at midnight.

 

"So this is what the end of the world looks like," Scully commented as the Volvo's headlights cut two swaths through the darkness, illuminating a small gray cottage nestled among the trees. "When you said you wanted to get away from it all for a while, you meant it, didn't you?"

 

"Welcome to picturesque Old New England in June," Mulder responded, putting the car in park. "Quaint, unspoiled countryside.  Fresh air.  Pristine beaches.  Rolling hills and grazing sheep and old stone fences steeped in history."

 

"Sheep cannot be steeped in history, Mulder."

 

"Not willingly," he agreed with a wry grin, and earned a smile as she unbuckled her seatbelt and got out.

 

"Where are we? I lost track when we left civilization about an hour and a half ago."

 

He got out and closed the car door softly, trying not to wake William. "The southwest corner of Martha's Vineyard. Do you like it?"

 

She eyed the isolated cottage.

 

"You'd better like it,” he said, “at least for the night. That was the last ferry from Wood's Hole. We're stuck here until 6 a.m. tomorrow. And, uh, the cleaning deposit is non-refundable."

 

"It's June. On Martha's Vineyard. How did you manage this?"

 

"I know the guy who owns the place. I sent him money; he sent me a key."

 

"He gave you a good deal?" She stretched her arms over her head tiredly and worked the kinks out of her back.

 

"No, he gave me an incredibly crappy deal. The week before I left for Oxford, he caught me in the back of my father's Buick with his daughter. Donna's married with three kids and sends me a Christmas card every year, but her father holds a grudge. Anyway, do you like it?"

 

She still didn't answer.

 

Mulder shoved his hands in his pants pockets. He slouched as he scuffed the toe of his shoe into the gravel of the road. "Some of the first vampiric activity in the New World was recorded on Martha's Vineyard," he added as an enticement.

 

He glanced up, her eyebrows had risen a degree. "We're out here chasing vampires?"

 

"No. Well, maybe a day trip, but mostly, no." He took the key to the front door from his pocket and held it out to her. "It's the end of the road, Scully. We're getting out of the car."

 

She glanced at the Volvo quizzically. "We are out of the car, Mulder."

 

He kissed the top of her head and put his arm around her as they walked back to get William and their bags. "Let's hope so.  For a little while, at least."

 

****

 

The cottage sat on a bluff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Mulder opened the window in the loft and smelled the salt on the breeze. The moon was full, reflecting pale silver on the waves breaking over the rocks on the shore.

 

Memories drifted in on the cool night wind: baloney sandwiches and sandlot baseball games and searching for pirate treasure among the dunes.  Innocence. The first and last place he remembered feeling safe. If he could give William and Scully a fraction of that feeling, he'd be content.

 

Downstairs, he heard Scully moving around, changing William before she put the baby to bed, and poking around the kitchen and the master bedroom. He'd brought in their luggage, but the Volvo's trunk still held a box of X-files Scully had yet to read - his abduction, including medical records, photos of his body, and a death certificate. There was her first abduction, and her trip to Antarctica, complete with the blood work indicating exposure to an unknown virus. The videotape labeled 'Mulder' was tucked in with the files, unwatched, along with her old journal, still unread. For kicks, before they'd left Georgetown, he'd tossed in Jose Chung's novel and a tape of “The Lazarus Bowl.”

 

He'd never tried to conceal the truth from her, but to dole it out in manageable bites.

 

"There you are," Scully said. The old steps creaked as she came up to the loft. "I wondered where you'd gotten to. Are you coming to bed?"

 

"In a minute. I was admiring the view," he responded. He extended his hand in invitation. "Come look at this."

 

She approached, then took his hand and leaned back against him as they stood in front of the window. "What am I looking at?"

 

"Squibnocket Beach." He traced the outline of her shoulder with his other hand. "I grew up on the Vineyard, Scully. I went to high school off-island, and to Oxford, but I grew up here. I was born four miles from here."

 

"I bet your name got doodled in a few starry-eyed girls' diaries."

 

"I cannot confirm or deny that, but I will confess while home from school, I romanced every girl in Chilmark. Both of them. It's a small island, Scully."

 

"Donna and..."

 

"Allison Marie Vanover.  In first grade, Allie borrowed my aqua-blue crayon, gave it back broken and with the paper peeled off, and I was in love.  It lasted until recess the following Thursday."

 

Her shoulders shook as she chuckled.

 

He pulled her tighter against him, fitting the front of his body against the back of hers and resting his chin on top of her head.  On either side of them, the gauzy curtains fluttered as the wind whistled in.  It was a soft June night on the cusp of summer, full of magic and hope and promises.

 

"It seems like a nice place to grow up."

 

"It was.  It is.  I was thinking... How would you like to stay for the summer?" he asked softly.

 

"The whole summer? I thought we were staying a week. What about the FBI? Your job?"

 

"I talked to Skinner. Anything the bureau wants me to look at, they can FedEx or fax. I did some checking; there's a big pathology conference in Providence in July," he said. "And Brown Medical School offers a bunch of continuing education courses. How many hours do you need?"

 

"Seventy-five hours every three years."

 

"Well, you would have the whole summer."

 

She slipped away, turning so she faced him, with her back to the window. "I'm getting the sense spending the summer here isn't a spur-of-the-moment idea."

 

"I've been thinking about it for a few weeks, but I had some things to take care of, first. I, I told you I want you to be safe, Scully. You and William. You're my compass." He stepped closer to her and took her hand again. "Due north. You keep me on track, keep me honest - even when the world is insane, even though I push you away, even if I'm certain I don't need or want your help. You tell me the truth I don't want to hear. You fill in the cracks of who I am without me even realizing it. Me without you - it's an incomplete equation. I can't erase the past, Scully, or guarantee the future. I'll let you walk away, but I won't risk someone taking you away from me again."

 

Her eyes drew him in like a whirlpool.

 

He continued. "I know it makes no sense to you, but it will. Once it does, I- I didn't get time to process what happened to me. Four weeks after I came home from the hospital, William was born, and six weeks later, you were gone. Everything rushed at me and, some of it, I didn't handle well. I want you to have time to think, to come to terms. To talk, if you want. All the time you need."

 

"Thank you."

 

"You're welcome," he answered quietly.

 

She looked down, seeming embarrassed. "After the kiss last night, I assumed- I thought this was a romantic getaway."

 

"Romantic? You think I'm attracted to you?" Mulder deadpanned. A fleeting look of uncertainty crossed her face. "Like iron shavings to a magnet, Agent Scully, and as difficult to get off." He stopped, frowning. "That, uh, didn't come out quite the way I intended."

 

"Shut up, Mulder," she ordered softly and she kissed him.

 

****

 

There was a big four-poster bed downstairs, but the bed in the loft was narrow, tucked under the eaves, and covered in a faded quilt - intended for a child rather than a couple.  As they moved toward it, her arms were around him, and her mouth under his felt as smooth and flowing as Mississippi blues.

 

"You're sure?" he whispered.

 

She slid her hand between their bodies, looking into his eyes as she popped the button on his pants.

 

"I'll take that as a 'yes.'"

 

His shirt came off, falling to the floor with a sigh. She slid her hands over his shoulders and down his arms, polishing his body back into her memory. As he undressed her, he kissed down the outline of her neck, and between her breasts and, as she lay back on the twin bed, across the borderland of her stomach to the forbidden zone at the juncture of her thighs.

 

The taste and smell of her was all around him, as intoxicating as the night. He traced the planes and contours of her, his skin rough against the smoothness of hers. She closed her eyes as he covered her, her body falling into a smooth cadence with his, like they'd been together a thousand times. Everything was slow, unhurried, as if they planned to make love to each other for the rest of their lives. 

 

"This is right," she promised, her breath warm against his neck as her fingertips traced mystical runes on his back. "I feel it.  Can you feel it?"

 

"As certain as the tide," he whispered back.

 

He pushed up on his elbows to watch her face as his body slid inside hers, breaking the long loneliness. She grimaced in pain and pleasure, biting her lip, and wrapped a leg around his hips and her arms around his neck, forming a lover's knot. He thrust slowly, barely moving his hips.  Her pelvis rocked upward in return, completing each cycle.

 

In dreams, he'd made love to her in every possible position, indulging fantasies from silk and candlelight to back alleys and a concealing trench coat. He had an oral fixation, a copy of The Karma Sutra, and an overactive imagination, but this time the mechanics of the act were secondary. Flannel pajamas sex was fine. Comfortable. Right. In fact, he marveled at the elegant simplicity of it, the fluid transaction between his body and hers, the sensual math of passion - how easy it was for a man to love a woman. 

 

Outside the window, the wind whistled and the ocean broke against the rocks, the sounds of the night merging with the murmurs and moans and gasps of pleasure. The white curtains billowed like ghosts as he drowned in her, teetering at the abyss. He closed his eyes and let the waves crashing through her body sweep over his as well.

 

In the seconds afterward, he wanted to pull her inside his chest and keep her there, safe from all the evil in the world. To stop time and hold the moment in the palm of his hand before something or someone could emerge from the shadows and crush it. Instead, he pressed his damp forehead against hers, ineloquently trying to put into words the emotions inside him. As he murmured to her, her fingertips traced the ridge of his spine, cool and smooth and accepting.

 

He'd loved her as long as he could remember, but love was ever-evolving.  Mutable. It waxed and waned, shifted and reformed - what they had together was endlessly being built, broken, and rebuilt like a sand castle on the shore. In the interim, they carved a few fragile moments of normal out of years of struggle and loss. But those moments were theirs, damn it.

 

He wished she remembered a few of them.

 

He withdrew and opened his eyes. She looked up at him, her eyes infinitely trusting.

 

"All the time in the world, Mulder," she reminded him, as if reading his thoughts.

 

"I know," he agreed softly, maneuvering so he faced her, with her head on his outstretched arm. Her skin glowed like fine marble in the moonlight.  He drew his hand down her body, letting it rest in the valley of her waist as the tingling sense of peace settled over him.

 

She shifted closer to him, and he felt her watching him in the moonlight.  Her fingertips trailed across his forehead, down his cheek, and over his lips and chin. He told her again he loved her, and relaxed, luxuriating in her touch and letting his mind drift.

 

Her hands moved over his body, exploring the evidence left by his many battles with Death. 

 

All in all, he wasn't half bad for a dead man. He had a few scars, an occasional nightmare, a stack of X-files, and a collection of bizarre stories nobody believed. And Scully. And their son. And all the time in the world.

 

Not bad at all.

 

Her heart beat against his, slowly, patiently. Mulder held her against him on the narrow bed. He listened to the sea as sleep came, heavy and safe, covering them like the night sky.

 

****

 

In his dream, the mug felt warm between his hands, steaming in the predawn darkness as he carried it to the back deck of their little rented cottage. The cool air off the ocean smelled of the mysteries of the deep.  In the sky, the wind blew the stars across the heavens: the ancient gods battling it out, marginally aware of their mortal spectators below.

 

Scully sat on the steps, looking toward the sea. She wore blue jeans and an oversized denim shirt, most likely pilfered from his wardrobe. As he approached, she turned, smiling in recognition.

 

Those old butterflies fluttered in his belly, and his heart beat faster. His heart didn't realize a dream; all his soul recognized was Scully.

 

"I was hoping you'd be here," he said. He sat down beside her and set his cup aside.

 

"I was hoping you'd come." She took his hand and interlaced their fingers.

 

They sat on the wooden steps for a long time, taking refuge in the shelter of each other and watching the drift of the stars across the heavens.

 

"I think that went well," he said, his breath white vapor in the cool air. He nodded to the upstairs window, where he and Scully slept in the loft, a naked tangle of arms and legs wrapped in a faded quilt. "It's been awhile, but I've been trying to keep abreast of the literature and, of course, practicing when I'm alone."

 

She tried to look disdainful, but the warm smile spreading across her face gave her away. "We figured it out pretty well before you were abducted. Were you afraid they'd changed it?"

 

He shrugged bashfully. "I was concerned. First time expectations and all."

 

"We have a child." She leaned closer and informed him, "That wasn't the first time."

 

"You know what I mean."

 

"You were nervous." She bounced her shoulder against his, teasing him. "You were nervous about being with me."

 

"All right; I was nervous." He studied the weathered boards beneath his feet and droned in his James T. Kirk voice, "Sex: the final frontier..."

 

"Mulder, you couldn't disappoint me if you tried."

 

"Now you tell me," he said with a crooked smile.

 

She laid her head against his shoulder, and he held her warm hand between both of his.  In the distance, he heard the waves breaking against the rocks, endlessly rushing forward and slinking back into the sea. As the first violet light glowed on the horizon, Ophiuchus fell into the west, tumbling with his serpent, a faint pattern in the vast sky.

 

"You know, in ‘Roman Holiday,’ Gregory Peck couldn't get the princess, and in the myth, Apollo couldn't get her back," he told her, toying with her hand. "Even Apollo couldn't bring Coronis back. All he could do was take his son from her dead body and keep the baby safe. Their child grew up to be the demigod Ophiuchus. The healer of mankind."

 

"Are you a god in this story, Mulder?" she said incredulously. "Or Gregory Peck? I'd think a god would have a better sense of direction and remember to put a toilet seat down."

 

"Party pooper."

 

He leaned back against the steps. There was a familiar rhythm, an easy simplicity to being with her. He could tell her a paragraph in a single word. They finished each other's sentences, filled in each other's cracks. She gave him a place to stand while he moved the world.

 

"They're gonna come for him," he said seriously, reaching for his coffee mug. "For William. He's not exactly what They want, but since I took away all their other options, someday, They're gonna come."

 

"If They do, we'll be ready," she promised.

 

He sipped his coffee and set the mug aside. He took her hand again as they sat on the wooden steps, watching the drift of the last stars across the fading night sky.

 

"Morning's coming," she said, looking out at the brightening horizon. "It's time for you to go. You have things to get back to, Mulder, and people to look after."

 

"Until the day I die," he promised, and added mischievously, "Again."

 

****

 

After thirty years, the monolithic rocks of Squibnocket Beach seemed smaller, as if a layer of their strength had been worn away by time and tide to reveal their hard core.  Around the cottage, summer bloomed on Martha's Vineyard like fireworks in slow motion.  The sun rose, silently painting a wide violet and scarlet canvas in the east.  On the beach, the cool hand of the wind caressed the dunes, and the seagulls called warnings to each other, scattering in protest as he and William approached.

 

Mulder selected a smooth gray rock and sat on the edge, holding William's hands while the baby bounced on unsteady legs, wanting to walk, but not ready to stand alone.  The tide came in, each wave rising higher on the sand until one reached their bare toes, leaving behind a layer of sea foam as it retreated.

 

William watched, fascinated, as a wave approached, and squealed in delight as it consumed their feet before slipping away again.  The game continued for several minutes, like some oceanic version of Peek-A-Boo, before Mulder looked over his shoulder to see Scully approaching on the path from the cottage.

 

She stopped at the edge of the dunes, a few dozen feet from where Mulder sat, her long skirt fluttering in the morning breeze.

 

"This is where you grew up?"

 

"In more ways than one," he responded as William bounced in anticipation of the next wave.

 

She wrapped her cardigan around her tighter, seeming awkward. "Is there a rule one of us leaves, after?"

 

"Yes, I think there is. And I think we should look in to changing the rule." He gave her a half-hearted grin as the ocean swallowed his feet again. "William was awake.  I thought I'd bring him down to the beach to play and let you sleep.  I didn't mean for you to think I'd left."

 

She nodded, seeming as unsure what to say next.

 

As the wave retreated, he picked up William and walked toward her, greeting her with an uncertain kiss. "Good morning."

 

"Good morning," she responded.

 

"This is the tricky part.  The morning after - that's usually when we screw it up," he told her.

 

"Well, let's try to do better this time," she said practically.

 

"Deal."

 

He shifted William to his hip and offered his hand. She took it, walking with him down the endless shore.  The sand beneath his bare feet felt rough and cool, and the ocean beside them continued on forever, until it disappeared into the crimson horizon.  It was a new day, full of infinite promises and mysteries.

 

One day, if his dreams were true, the sky would glow red with flames instead of the sunrise as the alien invasion began and humanity became the hunted rather than the hunter.

 

But not today.  And not for many days to come. 

 

No spaceships lay half-buried in the sand behind the dunes. No eyes watched from the shadows. There was the three of them, the June morning, and the endless seashore. There was her hand in his, and William's warm head resting safely against his chest as they walked along the shore.

 

"I understand what you said last night about due north," she said softly, after several minutes. "About me being your compass. I do feel the pull of it - of you - the same way I feel the tides."

 

"It frightens you."

 

"I'm trying not to let it." She smiled unconvincingly. "As wonderful as it is, it's also overwhelming, sometimes. And surreal, to not remember why I feel what I do."

 

"I know."

 

"There's research indicating young infants have memories which are possibly stored in the limbic system.  Since the hippocampus and the frontal and temporal lobes aren't fully formed, those memories must be stored without language or context or even understanding. They'd be visceral memories - impulses or learned instincts. Trust or distrust.  Attach or detach. Those early memories likely form the foundation of the adult personality, still hardwired into the nervous system, underlying but inaccessible to the adult consciousness. Logically, an adult could encode memories the same way, and would retain them even if the hippocampus was damaged. Those visceral memories would still provide the undercurrent of who they were and who they cared for," she finished, Agent Scully-style, making him long for a slide projector and a basement office.

 

He let her walk several more yards in silence before he responded, "My limbic system loves you, too."

 

She smiled again, and this smile made it all the way to her eyes.

 

"Time, Scully," he reminded her. "I told you last night. There's no deadline for us. Take all the time you need. All the time in the world," he said as they walked along the empty beach, beyond the ocean's reach. "I'm only gonna wait forever."

 

****

 

End: Book V

 

End: The 13th Sign


End file.
